


Environmental Stewardship and the Tree

by Guede



Series: Sustainable Management [7]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, All the Hales Are Trolls, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Angst and Humor, Dom/sub Undertones, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Drama, Human Alpha Stiles Stilinski, Incest, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Multi, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Pack Dynamics, Polyamory, Sex Toys, Sheriff Stilinski is a Good Parent, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 07:27:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5197409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not a holiday if you don’t have family issues.  Also, the Hales have the biggest house so by default they host.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Environmental Stewardship and the Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Reading Chapters 2, 8, 12, 15, 19, 22, and 23 of _Leaflets_ first would be helpful but is not necessary.

Stiles and his father are already set to bunk with the Hales for Thanksgiving when he gets the text that his grandmother is coming. He drops his bag of acorn samples.

Derek swoops in to grab it before it comes anywhere near the ground and then crowds up to read over Stiles’ shoulder. “Who’s Babcia?” he says.

Scott drops his bag of samples, snatches for it, and then yelps as stuff starts falling out of his half-open backpack. He just barely grabs it all up and then fumbles over to take up all the space on Stiles’ other side. “Is she coming for the holiday? Does your dad know? Is it official or is she just visiting or—”

“I don’t know! I just found out!” Stiles flails like a drunken windmill. It might give people the impression that he has the balance of a one-legged baby, but it also earns him a quick three feet of personal space, because he can’t text his dad back when he’s got werewolf weights on each elbow.

“Babcia’s his grandma on his mom’s side,” Scott helpfully explains to Derek. He backs up, because he can take a hint, and then makes room for Lydia to join in the huddle, because he is fatally polite like that. “She used to have the family tree back in Poland, but when they left during World War II, the new tree in America wouldn’t take anybody till Stiles’ mom, so now she’s more of a—”

“Figurehead?” Derek says.

“Honored elder?” Lydia says, with a disgusted side-eye at Derek.

“Badass retired freedom fighter who started up an organization to preserve Polish eco-magic traditions and pass legislation to get Nemetons recognized as an endangered species, who also schools hunters in her spare time,” Stiles mutters. His dad is annoyingly brief with his reply texts, which means that he’s busy. Which means that this was probably a surprise to him too, if he can’t get somewhere where he can just _call_ Stiles, and that’s…Stiles looks at Scott. “Where’s Allison?”

Scott frowns. “With her dad and my mom trying to figure out how to pack to stay over with the Hales?”

Derek also frowns. “What’s there to figure out? We live in the same town, it’s not like he’s going to Mars. Unless what, is he bringing weapons—”

“They had talks to figure that out, there’s an approved list, okay?” Stiles snaps. His dad’s not answering texts anymore. And yeah, he was being unfair to all their parents by even thinking it wasn’t a work-related distraction, but Stiles really wants an excuse to call him.

He waits and the seconds stretch on and there’s no new text. Stiles fights down the urge to shake his phone. Then to throw it, because he’s already pushing it on the number of replacement phones they’ll give him this year. Then he shoves his phone back in his pocket and blows out his breath and really, really, strongly resists the urge to scream. Because he is better than that.

Also because everyone is staring at him and he hates that feeling. Scott’s staring at him like he thinks Stiles could use a hug but he’s also not sure whether Stiles might punch him for trying. Lydia’s staring like she might be relieved trial basis means she and Jackson aren’t in on this holiday get-together, while next to her, Derek’s staring like he’s…he thinks he’s going to have to chase Stiles down or something. It’s kind of a weird reaction, so Stiles stares back at him.

“Ahem.” Peter looks down at them from the top of the hill. He waits till everyone’s done jumping and/or flapping arms, because he thoroughly embraces his stalker tendencies, and then strolls towards them. “Something the matter?”

“My grandma’s coming,” Stiles says. He runs his hand over the top of his head, then stops in the middle of his next thought because Jackson is huffing and puffing down the hill, with what looks like a wild pig swinging on his back. It’s…well, it’s probably glad it’s dead, and Stiles is glad that his parents let him get used to gory crime scenes early on, because the thing isn’t even in the remote vicinity of ‘gutted.’ “Wow, what happened to that? It looks like somebody went at it with a chainsaw.”

Peter winces, then looks back. “Sadly, that’s accurate.”

“It’s not my fault we just practiced on deer,” Jackson says. He drops the pig onto the waiting tarp, then assumes a defensive posture and stares at his hands scrubbing against his jeans. At least he’d remembered to not wear couture this time. “These are shaped weird.”

Stiles opens his mouth, catches Lydia glowering at him, and…since it is a holiday, and Jackson at least seems to have avoided puncturing the bowel, he attempts to be nice. “Well, we still have a couple hours, that’s enough time to get another pig—”

“Didn’t you say your grandma is coming?” Peter says. He pulls out his phone. “We can live with the pig, we’ll just roast it in pieces this year. But I should let Talia know about your grandma, she’ll want to factor that into the menu. Do you know if she can eat meat y—”

“Um, hey, let’s just…hold on that for a sec, okay?” Stiles says. Then he checks his phone, in hopes that his dad has…his dad has not gotten back to him. Damn. “I should figure out why she’s coming first.”

Peter and Derek look at each other. Then Peter slowly slides his phone back into his pocket. He considers the group, then bends over and orders Jackson to stop whining about his manicure and come pick up the pig.

“So…you worried?” Scott whispers, like the majority of them aren’t werewolves and the one other non-werewolf has demonstrated lip-reading skills.

Stiles smacks Scott on the back of the head, then grabs him by the arm. “Okay, look, you go tell your mom, she’ll know how to break it to the Argents if Dad hasn’t already. I’m going to…call some cousins, I guess.”

“Is your grandmother Wanda Brzezicki?” Lydia suddenly says. When Stiles goes stiff, she actually claps her hands together and gets all starry-eyed like some anime idea of a little girl. “Oh. My. God. Seriously? It’s Wanda Brzezicki? Wanda Brzezicki is going to be in town?”

“Who?” Jackson grunts, hefting a pig leg.

“Wanda Brzezicki!” Lydia’s starry eyes are starting to look a little celebrity stalker-y. “She’s only one of the most influential female ecologists _ever_ , Jackson. She’s the one who proved that a Nemeton can be stably revived after being cut down, which tripled Nemeton populations in one year. Also, she killed a _ton_ of Nazis in World War II with the Leshy family and the Vucari pack. She’s amazing.”

* * *

“Look, can we not talk about her?” Stiles climbs down from the tree and then dusts off a couple fallen leaves. “Yeah, yeah, she’s a big deal, blah blah blah. She’s my grandma, I’ve kind of heard about it since I was born?”

“Anything?” Derek says, interrupting Lydia.

Stiles shakes his head, but he can tell Derek and Peter—and Scott, for that matter—aren’t buying it. It isn’t exactly a lie, it’s just that with so many strangers coming in for the holidays, they’d have to be looking for a darach or a necromancer or somebody with an equivalently giant aura for the tree to pick out anything weird. Babcia would count, but she’d know that they’d know they could pick her up.

Well, honestly, she probably isn’t smuggling in a whole pack of Polish werewolves. For one, that would violate a bunch of treaties and it’d honestly be easier for her to get them into the country legally, if they’re going to go there. Two, she totally knows better than to threaten a guardian in their home forest, because yeah, _wrote the book_. Three, ugh, why is he thinking doomsday scenarios? Babcia’s always had a tricky relationship with his parents but it’s not like she’s tried to kidnap him, for example.

“It’s probably not that bad,” Scott says. “You’re probably just being paranoid.”

Oh, right, because that is what Stiles does. He thinks up all the bad shit that could happen and then makes sure it doesn’t. Except it’s his grandma, and she always manages to come out of left field. “Did anybody text when I was with the tree?” he says.

Scott’s shaking his head even as Peter hands back Stiles’ phone. “Talia did call,” Peter says. “But then she called again and said your father had talked to her.”

“He what?” Stiles says. “What’d he say?”

“I don’t know,” Peter says, clearly frustrated. “She was still at the courthouse and the judge was calling them back in.”

“Look, do you at least know what airline she’s using? Then we could hack the passenger manifests and figure out which flight it is,” Lydia says. Then she frowns at them. “What? I’m not going to lie, she’s a personal hero of mine, but you obviously don’t think so. You’re her family, and anyway, it wouldn’t be the first time that somebody was awesome in public but not in private.”

Stiles pauses, then just leans back against the tree. It sends out a pulse of curiosity and concern, but it also still feels sluggish and grumpy as hell. He’s worried, yeah, but he’s not yet at the point that he wants to drag it out of semi-hibernation; it needs the sleep, especially with getting revived so close to winter. So he gives the trunk a pat and pushes it out. “She’s not—look, it’s not that simple and basically, can we just shut up about her?”

“You just ran all the way over here,” Jackson, of all people, points out. “That’s not a big deal?”

“Well, I don’t know, and if it was, it’s not the kind of deal I want to hash out in a group,” Stiles snaps. Which he regrets immediately, without the visuals of Derek and Peter going stiff, although whoo, does that jack up the guilt. And Lydia looking hurt on top of offended just is the icing on the towering cake of pain. “Ugh. Fuck. I mean…I need to work some shit out with my dad first, okay? I know, I know, I’m alpha, and I _know_ , alpha stuff is pack stuff but, God, fuck, just…can I have a goddamn second?”

“We should probably get that pig back to the house,” Scott pipes up. He’s the only one who isn’t giving Stiles a disappointed look, but then, he’s the only one who’s lived through a visit with Stiles’ grandma. “I can get the head if someone else can get the other end.”

“You might as well carve it into primals here, then carry it,” Peter suddenly says. He and Derek look at each other, and at first Derek seems like he’s going to protest. 

Then he ducks his head and sighs, and he’s turning away when Peter reaches out. Peter taps Derek on the side of the head, much softer than his usual cuffing, and Derek still looks annoyed but he loosens up his shoulders. He looks at Scott and Jackson, then jerks his head at them and starts walking. Jackson looks irritated but he stuffs his hands in his pockets and starts following Derek; both Scott and Lydia blink in surprise at him. Then Scott scrambles after, with a quick squeeze to Stiles’ arm.

“Well, we can talk about it after the weekend if that’s easier,” Lydia says, watching them go. She crosses her arms over her chest and then looks back at Stiles. “It’s not like werewolves or tree guardians invented difficult family, you know.”

“Yeah.” Stiles smiles at her and she doesn’t exactly melt, but she does look like she’s calibrating her freeze against Celsius zero and not Kelvin. “Hey, you want to leave something, I can try for an autograph.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Why would I want her autograph?” Lydia checks her wellingtons for mud, then begins to carefully pick her way through the damp patches, following the others. “You can’t do anything with an autograph. If you really want to make it up to me, Stiles, get her notes on redirecting dominance drives towards outsiders.”

She doesn’t turn so she misses how Stiles’ smile drops right off his face. He looks at Peter, but Peter’s just leaning against the tree, cleaning some blood out from under his nails.

“Nobody ever reads the third volume,” Stiles mutters. He feels the tree ping at him again and pats the trunk. “Talia wants to talk to me, right?”

“She just said your father had spoken to her, and to not change any of our plans,” Peter says. He flicks off a last speck of dried blood, then turns so they’re face to face. “Alpha, is your grandma a threat?”

“No. Well—no, honestly, not unless she’s gone insane, but even the TSA should be able to pick that up. We’re not exactly subtle when we lose it.” Stiles catches himself trying to avoid Peter’s eyes and sighs and just looks at the guy. “It’s probably just a little family drama, and I’m freaking out everybody for no good reason. Sorry. I should…I should call your sister back, right? Tell her nobody’s coming after anybody, the Stilinskis are just having a little spat, hah hah, sorry, false alarm.”

Peter’s brow ticks up, but for once there isn’t a trace of sarcasm in it. He opens his mouth, pauses, and then sighs and puts his hands on Stiles’ shoulders. “If Talia wanted to speak with you, she’d have said so.”

“Well, yeah, okay, but are you saying she’s not telling you all to get out the barricades and man the trenches?” Stiles says. “With your family history? Shit, _shit_ , I didn’t mean to say that.”

He jerks back but Peter’s got a good grip on his shoulders. “Al—Stiles. _Stiles_.” Peter stiffens when Stiles grabs his wrists and tilts his head a little, just enough to bare throat, but other than that, he’s not about to back down. “Stiles. Listen to me. Talia is not doing any such thing, because your father and you have both said it’s not that kind of problem. We _believe_ you.”

“I know! I know, it’s just—I know.” Suddenly all the air seems to be gone, and they’re standing in a goddamn forest, for God’s sake. Stiles feels the tree poke him yet again and he’s irritated and then it just—drops away, and it’s just about all he can do to slump into Peter’s chest. “Fuck. It’s really not like that, okay, I just…I don’t want to freak you guys out.”

“Well, I won’t insult your intelligence by claiming we’re not worried,” Peter says after a long silence. He’s still letting Stiles hold his wrists away from them, though he’s twisting his arms like he’d like to put them around Stiles. “And yes, we’re a little sensitive about family reunions, given what’s happened before. But we invited you here and we don’t extend those sorts of invitations to people we don’t trust.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s why I feel so crappy right now,” Stiles mutters. He maneuvers his head around, but with how they’re pressed together, he can’t really see much past Peter’s chin. So he sighs and gets hold of himself, and backs up so he can properly see Peter. “I really wanted this to go well. I know you and Talia don’t give a shit if the rest of the family doesn’t like me, but I don’t want to be that guy.”

Peter smiles at him. Really smiles, doesn’t just use his grin as convenient shorthand for his strong desire to chomp a throat while tossing off tweetable quips. “I don’t think you’ve ever been _that guy_ , Stiles.”

“Hah hah, if that were true, I wouldn’t be having a nervous breakdown right now,” Stiles mutters. He leans forward and presses his cheek against Peter’s; he can tell Peter wants to dig into that, but Peter hesitates and then just dips his head to nuzzle at Stiles’ throat. “Also, Derek wouldn’t have blown me in the school parking lot for just saying yes to the invite.”

“I hope he at least turned on the window tinting,” Peter says primly. When Stiles snorts, he takes advantage of Stiles’ distraction to finally worm his hands free, but just puts them at Stiles’ waist. “It doesn’t matter to us whether the rest of our family _likes_ you, but that’s not just a personal opinion, or my outranking them. You’re not their alpha so it’s irrelevant whether they like you. All that matters as far as they’re concerned is that you can be trusted, and we’ve already vouched for you.”

“Okay, great. Good to know. But Derek’s also been stalking me even more than usual,” Stiles says. “It’s like he thinks I’m gonna change my mind and he’ll have to chase me down.”

Peter sighs. “Well, you haven’t actually met most of our family yet. For all we know, you might be the one who doesn’t like anybody.”

“But that doesn’t mean I’m going to just _dump_ you,” Stiles says, staring at him. “Wow, what kind of alpha do you think I am?”

“Not that guy,” Peter says dryly. He smiles a little when that startles a laugh from Stiles, but he’s still oddly sober. 

That must show on Stiles’ face because Peter stops smiling. He cocks his head, then steps closer and slides his hands up to Stiles’ ribs, angles his head so Stiles is basically seeing his neck and nothing else. It’d be flirtatious if he was moving but he’s just standing still, breathing in deeply, like he’s trying to pull all the scent out of Stiles. 

“I’m very happy you decided to come, too,” Peter says. He’s a little abrupt, though his voice is still steady. “It’s been obvious from the start that family matters to you, Stiles. You didn’t even want to get involved with us because you thought you’d be dragging us away from ours. So can you blame us if we’re a little nervous that you’ll meet our family, hate them, and think we’re better off if you’re not splitting our loyalties?”

“But I wouldn’t do that!” Stiles says. He stares at Peter. “I mean, yeah, that’s what I did then—but I’m, you know, committed now. It’s not really the kind of thing you can take back.”

“Well, you can, actually, you’re alpha.” Peter’s shoulders relax the faintest bit; Stiles only sees it because he knows the man well enough now to look for it. “Besides, I honestly can’t claim that all my relations are worth getting along with. The ones you’ll meet this weekend are the better ones, but you know, Talia and I are so good in dominance battles because we honed our skills with family first.”

Stiles can’t help rolling his eyes, the sarcasm’s too integral to his DNA, but he does reach up and curve his hands on either side of Peter’s neck. “I can have the tree eat the town, too, but I’m not going to. And whatever, so your family fights a lot. Believe me, that’s nothing new. There’s a _reason_ Dad and I don’t have any competing holiday parties to be going to.”

“Aside from us co-opting the McCalls and Chris Argent?” Peter says.

“Hah, hah, you think you’re so clever,” Stiles says. Like he missed the way Peter went on alert at the end there. He tugs Peter down and nuzzles Peter back, right under the jaw, and then sighs. “Look, let’s just…okay, you have sucky relatives, I have sucky relatives. I also am not sure what my sucky relatives are doing, and Babcia’s the kind of person you don’t want to take on unless you know exactly what you’re doing. So I hate to say it, but we gotta stand down.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself right now, Stiles,” Peter says after a moment. When Stiles gives him a disbelieving look, Peter shrugs and looks mildly dismayed. “I can wait at least as long as Lydia.”

Stiles laughs. He steps back and looks at the tree, and then at the werewolf who is, for some reason, willing to wait on him. Honestly, he doesn’t feel a hell of a lot better, but he feels…less urgent. And a little less like he’s doing something wrong for not doing anything right away.

“It’s not hard, it’s just…” he checks his phone, but nope, nothing from his dad “…look, I’ll…tell you a little about her while I’m waiting for my dad. I really should talk to him first before we do anything else. That okay?”

Peter nods. “Whatever you want to say, Stiles,” he says. “She’s your grandmother.”

* * *

“She’s not this horrible person or anything. I guess. Well, it’s complicated,” Stiles says. “She’s always been really nice to me. But she lives in Poland most of the time so I don’t really know her that well, and she and Dad have fought a lot, and Mom had issues with her too and it’s just…messy.”

He flops back in his chair on the Hales’ front porch and stares out at the lawn. It’s been nearly an hour and Stiles’ dad _still_ hasn’t gotten back to him. Stiles is trying hard to trust his father but this is pushing it, and that’s not the ADD talking.

“Cookie?” Peter says.

Stiles pushes himself up and finds that Peter is, in fact, offering him a plate of cookies. They’re wolf- and sheep-shaped and the sheep ones have icing claw- and bite-marks on their rears, and they look delicious. “You can’t solve all my problems by feeding me,” Stiles mumbles around a sheep cookie. He starts at the head because he is not a whimsical yet endearing sociopath. “Me and the tree don’t work the same.”

“I know, Stiles, but you haven’t eaten lunch,” Peter says. He sounds very calm and soothing, but he’s draped over the side of the chair, as close as he can get without actually sitting in Stiles’ lap, and every couple minutes he or Derek, who’s dragged over the other porch chair to crouch at Stiles’ opposite side, keep scenting Stiles. “Have a cookie and take a break, and maybe your father will get back to you by then.”

The cookie is as good at it looks, damn it. Stiles has a second one before he realizes it, and he only manages to keep from taking a third one because Derek is offering him a glass of milk. Stiles glowers at him but takes the milk, and then pushes the plate away. “Look, before I say anything else—I know you’ve heard of her. Everybody has. So how much and how bad?”

Peter contemplates the plate of cookies like he didn’t hear Stiles. He extends one finger and touches a cookie that has smudged frosting, then turns his finger over. Then lifts it to his mouth and licks it.

Stiles hits him on the shoulder. “ _Don’t_ distract me with sex. I’m serious. It’s not going to offend me if you don’t like what you’ve heard. I get it—I don’t like a lot of her ideas either.”

“Yeah, we have,” Derek mutters. He picks up the cookie Peter was molesting and starts eating it. And while he looks like he’s just concentrating on the cookie, and not also trying to include Stiles’ dick, there’s an awful lot of finger-licking and –sucking going on. “Laura did this course on female supernatural activists, wouldn’t shut up about her, and then Mom got irritated because something about how your grandma doesn’t really know werewolves?”

“Not just _that_ , Derek. If you’re going to eavesdrop, you could at least listen to the whole conversation.” Peter reaches around like he’s going for the back of Derek’s head, Derek scoots out of reach, and then Peter snorts and turns it into him lounging his arm around Stiles’ shoulders, nuzzling at Stiles’ ear. “We obviously don’t agree with your grandma’s approach to werewolves, but some of us were raised with manners and tact. If she ends up coming to dinner, I’m sure we could come up with something else to talk.”

“Yeah, well, you could, but she probably wouldn’t. That’s why Mom took Dad’s last name,” Stiles mutters. He absently sips at his milk. “The arguing got too bad. And then Babcia and Dad had this huge blow-up at Mom’s funeral that Dad still won’t tell me all about, and—”

His dad’s SUV is coming up the drive. Stiles frowns, then pushes out of the chair. His dad isn’t due for a couple more hours, and on top of that, Chris’ SUV is right behind his.

Peter gets up too, and comes to stand next to Stiles. He’s squinting at the cars. “Is that Talia with your dad?” he says.

“She’s early,” Derek says. “I thought that hearing was supposed to take another hour.”

Stiles’ dad pulls up and yeah, that’s Talia getting out of the passenger side, in a sharp skirt suit and with an armful of groceries. Derek starts to get up, but then Allison hops out of her dad’s car—now parked too—and comes up and offers to take the bags. Allison is smiling a ton, and Stiles knows her well enough now to know that’s her steamroller face, when she’s not really feeling it but is determined to pull it off. 

Talia definitely gets it too, judging from the glint in her eye, but she just smiles and thanks Allison without any weird flattery. Then she looks up at the porch. “Permit granted,” she says. “We’re finally getting that extra sump pump.”

So she probably got all her bloodletting urges out on the town engineer. Stiles hopes. “Great,” he says. “Hey, Dad. You’re early, what’s up? The baby rangers finally figure out the inventory system?”

“Hey.” His dad leaves the driver’s door open as he comes over to the porch. He nods at Peter and Derek, and then pulls Stiles into a brief but firm hug. “Hey, sorry, but I need to turn around and get your grandma from the airport.”

Stiles blinks. Tries not to be so pissed off the tree feels it. “Wait, she’s already _here_?”

“Well, no, but in about fifty minutes,” his dad mutters. He glances at Talia, then looks back at Stiles. “Sorry. Look, I’m going to get her, and then she and I will go grab dinner. She had a long flight so I think she’ll be starving. Then I’ll call you, all right?”

“Wait, what? Why are you—shouldn’t I come, too?” Stiles says. His father’s already turning away, but Stiles has that dodge down to raw reflex. He feints right, then darts around and grabs his dad’s other arm, dragging him back. “What’s going on? Did she say something? Why are you acting like—”

“Stiles,” his dad starts. Then he looks more closely at Stiles. He grimaces, then puts his hand on Stiles’ shoulder. “It’s okay. I just want to talk to her first.”

Behind him, and behind Talia, Chris is heaving bags out of the back of his SUV with Melissa, while Scott is standing with his arms out for them like a living baggage rack. Both Chris and Melissa look on the grim side, and Melissa in particular looks like she wishes she was packing up instead.

“Are you kidding me?” Stiles hisses. “You’re gonna pull this circle the wagons crap and you expect me to believe nothing’s going on?

His dad thinks for a second about just booking it. He does, and then he screws up his face and puts his hands on Stiles’ shoulders, and looks soberly into Stiles’ face. “Did you text anybody?”

“Yeah, but Piotr’s currently not talking to her and Kasia just got off some covert thingy in Finland that she’s been on for six months. Also, tried to see with the tree if she brought anybody and I don’t think so, but it’s hard with all the holiday travel going on,” Stiles says. He can already tell that his father hasn’t had any better luck. “She totally bitched you out again, didn’t she? Dad. I’m eighteen, I—I have my _tree_ now, you don’t have to protect me from her. And don’t give me bullshit about having good relations with Mom’s family, I can do that and still call her out for dumping on you.”

“ _Stiles_ ,” his dad snaps. 

Then his father looks around them, like honestly, _anybody_ standing around them right now is stupid enough to buy even a vowel from them on this, let alone some dumbass cover story. For that matter, as much as Stiles hates touching the whole Hale-Argent back-history, he’s got to say that Chris and Talia probably have just as much right as him to know what the hell here, if only to avoid any latent PTSD triggers.

Instead, Chris is letting his daughter carry Talia’s groceries and Talia hasn’t made a single menacingly serene comment. Which Stiles can see his dad pick up on, with a slump of the shoulders and a look like he wishes they just had some poachers to run out of town. 

“Dad, just…are you going to be okay?” Stiles sighs. “I just want to know what the fire drill is for. Then fine, I’m not thrilled but I’ll stay and make pierogis with the Hales while you’re…having dinner with Babcia. Or flooding another restaurant, or whatever. You know, what you usually do when she’s in town.”

“Stiles,” his dad says again, but a lot more resigned. He runs his hand through his hair, then sighs. “That was because their idiot chef tried to pass off spoiled milk on the resident domovoi, and…look, she wants to talk to me. Because you’ve got a tree now.”

Which doesn’t follow at all. Stiles has to admit, ever since he got the text, he’s been wondering what fresh bullshit his grandma’s looking to push on him. She’s considered a founding expert on modern Nemeton studies for a good reason, but Nemetons back in the day must have been way different, because she has these ideas about how every tree is a temple and the ideal forest is a primeval forest, and all the people in the area need to put themselves at the Nemeton’s service, and every species has its specific, super-narrow role to play and the guardian is basically God. So, well, honestly, it’s really…intense and over-structured and cultish.

In his experience, Nemetons pop up in all sorts of settings, and they grow in suburban parks or whatever instead of old-growth forests ‘cause they want to be in a suburban park, and it’s a shitty (or apocalyptic) guardian who tries to make them change. And anyway, trying to get at him via his dad is just not the way to go. She should know that.

“And you’re eighteen, so you technically don’t need a legal guardian anymore,” his dad adds, reading his train of thought. “So she wants to talk to me about leaving the Service. And you. And working for her.”

Stiles opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks at Melissa, who is just as disbelieving and unhappy as he is. “She _what_?”

“So I’d like it if you could just stay put for now, so I can yell at her and make her leave before she ruins the whole weekend,” his dad says, in kind of a rush, with lots of just-bear-with-me shrugs. “I asked Chris and Melissa to come early because she’s been digging around. I got a note from the interagency licensing guys that she asked for records on the Argents, and while I don’t think it’s going to lead to anything, I think one of us should stay with them till I get W—Babcia straightened out.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, I can see…” Stiles glimpses Chris shove his head into the back of his SUV and cuts himself off, because the guy is being really tactful, given the circumstances, and Stiles isn’t a heartless asshole “…that’s so not okay. Also, really not making me feel better about staying here, but…it’s your job, better coming from you,” Stiles mutters. Which is not even remotely what he’s really thinking, his dad and him have always been a team, that’s the whole damn reason why the Service bent child-labor laws for him, but he’s also never wanted to have one of those co-dependent deals going on. Because his dad has already given up so much for him, so the least he can do is not be clingy. Well, try not to be. “But if you’re not back for dinner, I’m gonna assume you’re kidnapped and come after you.”

“She’s not kidnapping me. She’s just being her.” His dad rolls his eyes and gives Stiles a squeeze on the shoulder. “I’ll text when we’re done, okay? And just try to keep the property damage on your end down.”

“Fine, I’ll _try_ ,” Stiles says. He bites his lip when his dad pulls back, then shakes himself and makes his arms stay down. His dad’s right about one thing: much as he hates it, he’s better back here than out front.

His father steps off the porch. He pauses to thank Talia for accommodating the change in plans, and Talia is gracious without being sarcastic, which throws him for a second. Then he shrugs it off, and goes up to Melissa and Chris. He mutters something to Melissa that makes her shrug and nod, then gives her a quick peck on the mouth.

They’ve been doing that in public the last week or so, now that Scott’s finally progressed to just averting his eyes and shuffling his feet. But then Stiles’ dad goes to Chris, who blinks hard, just like the rest of them do, because sure, those two eye-fuck plenty (and have forced Derek to learn to lie about smelling certain things) but Chris is pretty good at not actually letting anybody catch them. And he’s looking like he might duck here, too, eyes flicking to Talia, but at the last moment he holds still. Stiles’ dad had been waiting for that and he just reaches up and cups the back of Chris’ neck, pulling him in to press cheeks for a second. Then he hops back into his car.

Chris half-turns when Stiles’ dad lets him go. He stares at the car pulling away till Melissa touches his arm, then abruptly turns back. He pauses, then puts on a neutral expression and posture as he walks up to Talia.

“Chris,” Talia says. She’s already pressed cheeks with Melissa and Scott. Allison’s hanging back, eyes swinging between Talia and her dad—well, pretty much everyone is doing that—and she sucks in a breath when Talia angles her head same as she’d done for Melissa.

She and Chris barely touch cheeks, and then Chris steps back with a quickness that’s just shy of rude. He puts his hand on Allison’s shoulder as she greets Talia, slightly more politely, and then blinks as Talia also offers her hand to him. After a second, he takes it with a stiff nod.

“Thank you,” he says. “It’s very generous of you, Alpha Hale.”

“It’s very generous of you to accept the invitation,” Talia says calmly. Then she goes up onto the porch. She greets Derek and Peter with abbreviated scentings, then opens the front door. “Come on in. Stiles, I’m sorry but I’ve got to go jump on a call. Peter—”

“I’ll let them in the wards,” Peter says. He smoothly takes the groceries from Allison and then snakes a bag from Melissa, who grins at him like she had been counting on it.

“Stiles,” Talia says again, just as he’s thinking they’re all clear. She looks at him and she’s just plain concerned, and honestly, the serene fuckery would have been easier to take. “Your father explained and I don’t want to meddle in what’s not my business, but you’ll let me know if you need anything. I know you and your father can handle it, but we would like to help if we can.”

“Ah, yeah, noted. Thanks.” Stiles grabs a bag from Scott, who is teetering dangerously, despite his werewolf muscles, and then looks significantly at Derek till he gets a few too. “Okay, then, so our rooms. I’m so excited, let’s go right now. Right now.”

* * *

On second thought, Stiles thinks, staring at the end of the hall, maybe he should just handed this one off to Peter. Objectively, he gets it: the house is full up and even Derek is giving up his room for Peter’s for the time being. And Stiles was obviously going with them, and his dad has made it abundantly clear that he is absolutely not going to chance walking in on them when he doesn’t have to, which leaves two rooms on either side of Peter’s for the rest of them to split.

“I already put my dad’s stuff in that one,” Stiles says, pointing. That’s the room with the best window exit route to the roof or down the drainpipe, and it’s nearer to the bathroom, too. “I guess boys and girls?”

Chris and Scott glance at each other, while Allison bites her lip and does a decent job of pretending she’s not clutching Scott’s arm. Sometimes it does seem like she really believes Scott is going to disappear if they’re separated for two seconds.

Melissa sighs. She’s rummaging through her bag for something, and then she pulls out a fistful of little flat plastic wrappers that she stuffs into Scott’s backpack while he’s staring at her. Then she grabs his head in both hands, making his eyes bug out like he’s just taken a groin hit. “Scott, baby, I know you’ve done a good job of being responsible and I’m proud of you for it. So please keep it up. Chris?”

Chris is looking at her like he saw exactly what that handful was, and he finds this as improbable as Stiles does. He rubs absently at his neck, exposing a fresh-looking hickey under his collar, then looks at Allison, who clearly didn’t see the condoms but who senses that a hopeful face is the best way to go. Then he sighs too. He hugs Allison and bends to peck her on the temple. 

“Just be careful,” he says. He looks at Scott. “And you’d better be when she isn’t.”

“Dad,” Allison protests.

He smiles at her and it’s the same wolfish grin Peter gets when it’d be rude to roll his eyes but Peter has to express his disbelief in some way. Derek sees it too, judging from how he abruptly steps up behind Stiles. Chris ignores him but pauses at Melissa; she looks annoyed, but apparently not as bad as Chris was thinking she might. He shrugs at her and she does roll her eyes.

“Um,” Scott says. “Wait, so…”

“Just give me some plausible deniability when I wake up in the middle of the night and hear something,” Melissa says. She grabs Chris by the arm and starts pulling him towards Stiles’ dad’s designated room. “All I’m asking for, Scott.”

“That does seem reasonable,” Peter says mildly. When Melissa pins him with a look, he smiles and points to the runes lining each doorway. “Do let us know if the soundproofing needs to be adjusted. I’ve never found fault in it, but then, I suppose there’s a first for everything.”

Scott’s face goes from shocked and tentatively excited to horrified; Allison just makes a face and then pairs up with Stiles to push Scott into their room.

“You still owe me from last week’s game, Hale. Don’t be surprised if I call it in,” Melissa calls over her shoulder. Then she shuts the door.

A second later, Allison does the same. “Well, they’re taking it okay, I guess,” Stiles says. He waits for a minute, in case Melissa pops back out, and then shrugs. “All right, then. I’m gonna go talk to the tree.”

“Now?” Derek says. “Weren’t we just there?”

“Yeah, but that was before Babcia decided to recruit Dad.” Stiles grabs Derek’s arm and starts pulling him down the hall and the stairs. He pauses when he hears a car coming, but Peter mutters from behind them that it’s Laura’s car, so he keeps on going to the back porch. “She used to be a guardian, the trees will still be able to track her once she gets out of the airport.”

“Do you want us to send anyone into town?” Peter asks. He doesn’t exactly get in Stiles’ way, but the doors are suddenly stiff and don’t let Stiles just barge through them, and Peter does most of the everyday ward maintenance around the Hale house. “Laura’s due in half an hour. She probably has Jane and her kids with her, and if she’s back on with her boyf—”

Derek snorts. “She dumped Darryl and now she’s going with this Olivier guy from the Broussard pack. I don’t think he was coming.”

“Well, at least she won’t be distracted,” Peter says. “Anyway, I can’t get away but we can send her.”

Stiles does think it over. Then he shakes his head, and while he’s at it, lets Peter go in front of him to handle the doors. Peter looks about half as smug as he’d usually be about that, swinging them easily out of Stiles’ way and half-walking backwards to keep eyes on Stiles’ face.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Stiles says. “She’ll spot a tail, believe me. And a werewolf is totally not going to help Dad out. It’ll probably just make Babcia start in on him about how apex predators are critical elements for a Nemeton forest and that’s totally what Laura got into, isn’t it?”

Derek and Peter look at each other, and then Derek reaches out to get the next door. He happens to push up behind Stiles as he does, and he stays like that, casually snugged to Stiles’ left side like the latest in werewolf body suits. “Yeah, but then she got the part about how your grandma thinks werewolves can’t control their homicidal tendencies and can’t be anything but perimeter guards and population control, and that kind of soured her on it.”

“Oh, really?” Stiles pauses as they hit the back porch and a blast of chilly air hits him. He pulls at his shirt to get the collar up, and then remembers he’s got his own portable heater and just tugs till he’s semi-standing inside Derek’s coat. “Wow, that’s actually a pretty complete syllabus. Usually they just excerpt her bits about how damaging it is to let non-predator populations breed uncontrollably and needing to accept a certain level of violent death. And the stuff about using Nemeton acorn flour to bulk up protein intake, for some reason.”

“Talia believes in reading what her children are reading, unabridged,” Peter says, shrugging. “We had a little family book club for a couple months. Anyway, if you think it’ll send the wrong message, then—”

“Hey,” Scott says from behind them. He comes running up, way more breathless than he should be; the Hale house is, honestly, a mansion, but he’s a _werewolf_. And his shirt’s buttoned up crooked, and he has a faint smear of lipstick under his jaw, which explains it. “Hey, sorry, I know I’m late but we’re unpacked so what are we doing?”

Derek turns and looks at Scott over Stiles’ head. He stares and Scott frowns, straightens up, and then picks up that Derek’s staring at his jaw and not his throat. Scott wipes at the lipstick, sees it on his fingers and winces.

“You’d better be doing your own laundry,” Derek mutters. “And her dad’s, too.”

“Can we not talk about our parents?” Allison says, also coming up. She’s a little more tidied up, and she’s got her crossbow with her. She smiles at Scott when he takes her free hand, but doesn’t miss the way Derek and Peter both clock the crossbow. Allison’s shoulders wobble a little, then go back and her chin goes up. She smiles at them, and it’s genuinely nice but it’s also full of I-see-you-and-I’m-gonna-smile-‘cause-that’s-how-I-roll. Sometimes Stiles has a feeling she might be just a little too good for his best buddy. “Okay, look, I don’t want to spend the whole weekend hiding in corners, so…I get it if you don’t feel comfortable around me. But I’m not here for you, I’m here for Stiles. He needs a bow, I want to make sure he’s got one.”

Derek leans a little more on Stiles, pushing his cheek into the side of Stiles’ head for a second. Then he makes this grunt, like he couldn’t care less, and he looks out at the yard. Peter looks at him for a second, then at Stiles, and then turns a thoughtful look on Allison. Which Scott totally misreads and he’s about to jump in between them when Peter steps back inside the house.

“I have to stay,” Peter says, looking irritated. “Incoming family to direct and all that. How long are you going to be?”

“Just till dinner,” Stiles says. He reaches out and grabs Peter’s hand, and then tugs till Peter bends and lets him curl one hand around the man’s neck. Peter huffs a little, surprised, when Stiles goes so far as to bite lightly at the side of his throat, and then croons softly, rubbing their cheeks together. “Dad hasn’t texted by then, we maybe got somebody to shoot. Until then, guys, she _is_ my grandma, okay? Even if she’s, well, kind of a bitch to Dad.”

“Noted,” Peter says dryly. He steps back, then catches Allison’s eye. “We could use a couple more rabbits for the pot pies, if you come across them.”

Allison’s eyes widen. Scott glances at her, then hisses in her ear, but she’s already nodding. “Uh, sure. Happy to.”

“Just clean them right,” Derek mutters, walking Stiles down the steps. “Jackson already screwed up the boar, like Olive’s going to shut up about that, and—”

“Dad started teaching me how to dress game when I was a little kid,” Allison says, all insulted face, relaxed shoulders. She comes down the steps, Scott’s hand swinging in hers on one side, the crossbow swinging on the other. “Jackson doesn’t know? But he goes to that fancy country club—”

“Exactly,” Derek and Scott say. Then Derek grunts again, like he doesn’t give a damn about anything outside of his precious leather coat, and tugs said coat further around Stiles. He grimaces as Stiles promptly, and genuinely on accident, steps on his ankle, but just shortens his stride so they aren’t tangling feet.

“Well, at least you can’t tell in a pot pie,” Derek mutters. He absently nudges Stiles’ temple with his nose. “So what are you asking the tree?”

* * *

A lot of things, but they all basically boil down to ‘do you know what the hell Babcia is smoking’ and ‘do you agree with her’ and ‘you do understand that my dad is really goddamn important and is non-negotiable, right.’ To which the tree responds: 1) it doesn’t understand the concept of recreational smoking and sidetracks Stiles into a long explanation about how this is _not_ a reference to controlled burns and chill out, that’s not till spring; 2) Babcia is not the tree’s guardian, _Stiles_ is, and Babcia has not said a word to the tree anyway so what is the issue; and 3) duh. And 4) if Stiles dislikes her so much, does he want the tree to make Babcia leave?

Nemetons are protective, but not necessarily possessive; jealousy is a little complex for a plant, even a sentient one. Their old tree hadn’t seemed to really distinguish between Stiles’ mom, Stiles or his dad, and had developed a couple weak bonds with some Forest Service employees who regularly helped with feedings. Stiles’ tree has been pretty similar so far: it doesn’t have any problem with Scott or Melissa, recognizes the Argents and Lydia, and is developing strong associations with Peter and Derek and tasty food, to the point that it kind of sheens excitedly (hard to translate plant emotions) whenever one of them shows up with Stiles.

Of course, the tree understands if someone is trying to fuck with it or Stiles, and isn’t shy about intervening. But it’s never offered to intimidate someone just because Stiles doesn’t like them, and it hasn’t even occurred to Stiles to ask about that, otherwise Finstock would have had to give up on those lung-busting conditioning sprints through the preserve.

“Stiles?” Scott’s voice drifts in. “Stiles?”

“Stiles, it’s getting late,” Derek says. “Are you—ow.”

Okay, so Stiles had started out just kneeling with his hands on the trunk, but now he and Derek are up in the branches, for some reason. There’s a nice little scoop on the north side where the tree likes them to curl up, and they’re cozied up in it with Derek bracing his back to the trunk and holding Stiles like a fainting damsel, Stiles’ lengthy, detailed objections on that position notwithstanding.

“I was in a hurry,” Derek says, reading Stiles’ face. He worms his arm out from under Stiles’ knees and then grunts as Stiles semi-accidentally pokes him with a couple more joints, trying to get his head up. “Hey, wait, you should—”

“Is that the new alpha?” pipes up an unfamiliar voice. It’s definitely a kid’s voice.

“He’s skinny. And he doesn’t have branches sticking out of his head,” says another voice, patently disappointed. “I thought he was going to be cool.”

“ _I_ think he’s cool,” says a third voice.

Derek looks pained. “So some of my cousins decided to cut through the preserve because they wanted to see the Nemeton first. Peter’s yelling at their dad.”

Oh, yeah, the werewolf over by the bushes grimacing at his phone, the Nemeton lazily acknowledges. Nice one, remembered to ask permission before he crossed into the preserve, didn’t seem like a big deal so the tree didn’t bring it up. Anyway, Stiles wanted to know about his grandma, not about more Hales.

“You are the worst watcher of the forest ever,” Stiles mutters at the tree, and leans over for a look.

Werewolf kids, as it turns out, are flat-out adorable. Scott is hovering behind them with a cooing Allison, because Scott always ends up with the little kids (sometimes Stiles wonders if his father’s pack crossed in some herd-dog weres somewhere along the line), and none of them are over waist-height on him. And they’re all wolfed out, with little claws and little fangs and little side-burns, and one has a dead chipmunk clutched in her hand. Stiles is not usually one for sentimentality but he can’t help a little gooshy feeling when the one with the chipmunk raises it and stuffs it in its mouth, and then looks up with the chipmunk tail sticking out from the middle of a wide-eyed, snub-nosed, angelic face.

“Hi!” says a chipmunk-less one. “Did we scare you? We didn’t mean to scare you, we just wanted to say hi. I’ve never seen a Nemeton before, do they really have big wooden fangs?”

“Oh, my God, Derek,” Stiles mutters. “Did you flee from toddlers?”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Shut up and try to babysit them first. Anyway, did the tree tell you anything?”

Stiles looks pointedly at Derek’s…well, Peter is Talia’s only sibling so that must be a cousin, and the kiddies are second cousins? “Well, we don’t have to worry about whose side it’s taking,” he says, and climbs down. “Hi, I’m Stiles.”

A chorus of ‘hi’ and ‘hello’ greet him. He’s got two boys and a girl, and the dad has nineties frosted tips and a triskelion tattoo on the back of his left hand, so that’s…Gabriel. Lives near the coast, is one of those rare werewolves who’s actually into water and who surfs constantly, has an on-off relationship with the mother of his kids that’s currently off, supplies Talia’s kitchen with seafood and gets an indifferent ‘meh’ from Peter. He comes when he sees his kids babbling and apologizes to Stiles for the breach of manners, yes, he _did_ get Peter’s etiquette email but he didn’t read it as closely as he should’ve, blah blah blah.

He seems cool, but he’s kind of useless when his kids get unreasonably excited about Stiles having the Nemeton swing down a few branches for them to hold onto. They start digging in with their claws, which might be toothpicks compared to a full-grown wolf’s steak knives, but which still irritate the tree. Scott picks up on Stiles’ grimace and ends up charming the babies into following him for leapfrog.

“He’s great at babysitting,” Stiles says.

“He’s so great,” Allison says dreamily.

Derek grudgingly nods, and then does something with a neck-crack and a shoulder roll that gets Gabriel scooting after his kids. “I’ll keep it in mind next time somebody talks us into hosting a birthday party,” Derek says. “So, tree? Did it find your grandma?”

“Babcia and Dad made it from the airport, and then they went to his office instead of out, and they’re still there. Um, let me…oh, he did text. And wow, it’s late.” Stiles stares at his phone, and then his stomach growls, like he wasn’t getting the point. “Did we miss dinner? Didn’t anybody try to wake me?”

“You looked too deep in, so I just sent Mom and Peter a text,” Derek says. “Peter says he’s got food waiting for you on the back porch. What’d your dad say?”

“That he’s taking Babcia to our house and then coming over.” Stiles texts his dad back for more information, but he’s not expecting anything except biting his nails and listening for his dad’s car in the drive. 

He still really wants to just go after his dad and drag him home, but contrary to common belief, Stiles does know strategies beyond just bulldozing in and winging it. Babcia isn’t doing anything yet that’s not just being annoying, and she _is_ a big deal. The Service will cover them for a lot, but Stiles doesn’t know that it’ll go that far. If he’s going to risk things going south (and okay, yeah, his dad being pissed at him for jumping in), he’ll need to point to more than just an inability to call ahead.

“So what does that mean? I thought your dad was getting her to leave town?” Allison asks. Then she raises her brows at him. “Come on. Even if it’s confidential or top secret or whatever, your dad mentioned licenses so my dad’s involved.”

“Did your dad say anything?” They’re not going to get anything more done here, and Stiles really does need to eat before he just sucks the blood from those dead rabbits Allison’s got dangling from her crossbow, so he starts walking. “Or Melissa?”

Allison comes up on one side just as Derek comes up on the other. She moves back as Derek slings his arm around Stiles’ shoulders, then hefts her crossbow over her shoulder. “Not really. Melissa just said that it’s your grandma, that she’s got political pull and gotten in fights with your dad before. And that she usually respects alphas so we’d be less likely to get dragged in if we went to the Hales’ place early.”

“I don’t know if ‘respects’ is the right word,” Stiles mutters. “It’s more like, Babcia _would_ go with werewolf customs if she was going to challenge an alpha, and Talia’s badass enough that…um, I don’t know if you’ve gone over how dominance battles work…”

“I’m dating Scott, it’s kind of the third thing he explains after why his mom’s human and why they’re packless,” Allison says, sighing. She reaches over her shoulder and adjusts the hanging rabbits so they won’t drip blood on the backs of her boots. “Also, Dad finally got to the part where hunters get called in on alpha werewolves who won’t accept a loss.”

“You didn’t know that?” It’s Derek asking, surprisingly enough.

Well, till Stiles remembers that Derek doesn’t like Scott and probably tuned out half the conversations in previous run-ins with Allison. “Her parents didn’t tell her they were hunters till after Gerard tried to kidnap her.”

Allison grimaces and looks away, and totally misses the thoughtful glance Derek gives her. “Yeah, up till then it was just, oh, Kate? Well, honey, she fell in with a bad crowd. I know, I know, should’ve been obvious. They put me through all this training, but they pretended it was all sports stuff, get outside and learn. You know, father-daughter bonding when your dad happens to be the outdoorsy type. They didn’t _explain_ it’s because we use those skills to go after other people. For that matter, Dad’s _still_ kind of bad at cluing me in.”

Derek’s brows tick up at the ‘people’ but he doesn’t comment. He does reach over and flick a fallen leaf off one of the rabbits, and then leans back under Allison’s surprised look like she’s the weird one.

“Anyway, come on, your dad’s all freaked out about your grandma digging into my dad. He even scented Dad, in public. And Dad let him,” Allison says, prodding Stiles with her elbow.

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about our parents,” Stiles says.

“I don’t, but Dad doesn’t _do_ that, Stiles,” Allison says. “And I thought werewolves do that as a greeting, not as a farewell.”

“You do it for reassurance, too,” Derek says.

Allison goes a little stiff. “Reassurance about what? I thought you said nobody’s getting hurt.”

She’s not looking at Derek, she’s looking at Stiles, but Derek still goes tense against Stiles. Though when he speaks, he sounds pretty controlled. “Well, for the record, it’s not for my family. We told everybody ahead of time that the Argents are staying over and believe me, they all know what you and your dad look like.”

Allison winces, and while Derek doesn’t look sorry, he does look like he hadn’t thought that one through. But then she shrugs it off. “So your dad, who’s he marking for?” she says to Stiles. “Also, I know he keeps saying he’s not an alpha, but come on. Seriously?”

“Um, he’s…” Stiles has had this conversation with Melissa a couple times, because she’s such a good mom she’s made damn sure she can wolf-body-language without Scott ever noticing the effort, and because Stiles is, admittedly, good for pretty much any random late-night phone call about a niche research subject. Damn his insomnia and ADD, and damn his enabling government-paid database logins. “He’s…special. In a completely non-negative-euphemistic way.”

For a second Allison and Derek are united in the ‘huh’ look. “What?” Allison says.

“Look, it’s really complicated and I _know_ your dad didn’t teach you about cross-species language acquisition concepts, and bottom line is, Dad isn’t an alpha because I’m the alpha in our house, but he’s still my dad. He’s his own thing,” Stiles says. He adds a couple hand waves, but neither of them look like they’re even going to ask about the nifty wrist twist (really, nobody appreciates obscure languages), so he puts his hand down. “Otherwise that’d made him _the McCalls’_ alpha, and you know how they feel about that.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Allison nods slowly. “Melissa and I talked about that—but back to the subject.”

“Nobody’s getting hurt, but other than that, I don’t know, okay? It’s definitely not because Babcia has something against hunters, because she works with them. And I don’t think it’s your aunt and grandfather either,” Stiles says. When Allison looks skeptical, he…actually kind of feels for her for a second. That’s a totally reasonable reaction to have, but she just looks so resigned to it. Honestly, right then she really looks like her dad. “No, really. If that was it, she wouldn’t be going to the licensing guys. It was a really publicized case, most of the evidence is in the public domain, and the stuff that isn’t would be with the FBI.”

Allison flinches, then nods tightly. She glances to the side, then looks a little shaky when she realizes nobody’s there. Then she pulls herself up and looks back at Stiles. “So what is it, then? The last I heard, Dad was clearing all the tests. Is he not going to get his license back?”

“No, if that was it, my dad wouldn’t be having dinner with her, he’d be going ballistic at the higher-ups. He hates that kind of political shit, and…look, I’m sorry, but I can’t even guess. I don’t know her well, I just know that Dad and her have—have arguments going on. Why do you think I hate it when she pulls this shit?” Stiles says, exasperated. “Every time she shows up, he gets weird, and when I ask he just tells me it’s not worth burning bridges over, and God, I just don’t _get_ him sometimes. He’s my dad, he comes first.”

Allison nods in sympathy. “Oh, my God, I get that completely. You know, my dad? Well, we spend years on our own, right? Because my relatives don’t even care what really happened, they just want to not be connected to it. And then they just sent us something about helping me pay for college if I go over and train with them, and for some reason that I don’t get, Dad doesn’t just tell them to shove it.”

“They want you to go to France?” Derek says sharply.

“Yeah.” Allison bites her lip, then shrugs. “So that’s kind of a secret, because I think my dad’s still trying to figure out whether he wants to even bother you guys about it. You know, because if he says no, it’s just our problem.”

“Why would he want to…wait.” Stiles stops so suddenly that Derek jerks into him from behind, and then has to straighten Stiles while he’s staring at Allison. “Wait, are you saying your jerkass relatives are being nice again because of us? Because of me?”

Allison looks simultaneously pissed off and embarrassed. “Well, nobody’s actually come out and said so, but it’s not like anything else around here has changed. And I know from what Dad’s said that they take Nemetons seriously.”

“If they’re going to put you back in the order of inheritance, yeah,” Derek says.

“Oh, like I care,” Allison snaps. She brushes the hair back from her face, then takes the crossbow off her shoulder. The rabbits are going lopsided on their string and she evens them out, then glares at their glazed, bulging eyes. “They can go to hell, honestly. We survived without them, and if they’re not going to help when we’re in trouble, I don’t see why I should give them anything now. Oh, and Stiles, Dad really, really doesn’t want to make you guys feel pressured into anything, just so we’re clear. He’s not holding back because he’s planning to ask you to help us out.”

“I…actually wasn’t even thinking about that, but thanks. No, really, I appreciate it.” Stiles moves his foot because the rabbits are a little drippy, then offers Allison a smile. She blinks and for a second time looks a lot like her dad, when he doesn’t know Stiles is watching him and Stiles’ dad together. They both don’t seem to expect much out of others; Chris is just way more dour about it. “It’s okay. Wouldn’t be the first time some asshole wanted to suck up to the tree.”

He nudges Derek, then starts walking again. Allison hesitates, but catches up quickly enough. “I don’t even want to go to France,” she mutters. “It’s not like they live in Paris. I looked up the estate on Google Earth and it’s the ugliest castle I’ve ever seen, and from what Dad’s said about _his_ summers there, they don’t believe in things like indoor showers or central heating.”

“Are they going to come over here if you say no?” Derek asks. He pauses, watching her face, and then loosens up on Stiles so he can look at her without Stiles’ head in the way. “Look, I’m not going to pretend we’re completely okay with you. But we’re not okay with people getting kidnapped around here either, whoever they are.”

“Well, if we’re not doing it. You should probably add that to the end of anything we say,” Stiles tells her. “But seriously. You have my number. And look, I’ll…shut up about it for now, but your dad should talk to my dad about it, even if he’s just going to turn your family down.” 

“Yeah, I know. And—I don’t know, I actually think he might have already, but he just won’t talk to me about it,” Allison says slowly. She looks between them, then smiles. It’s small and tight but it’s real, and it really didn’t see this coming but it’s glad for it. She’s glad for it. “Stiles? Thanks.”

They walk on for a couple minutes. Scott and Gabriel and the kids aren’t within earshot, at least to Stiles, but Derek doesn’t look concerned. And then the tree mutters that they’re waiting at Gabriel’s car, parked just over the next hill. Also, Stiles’ dad and Babcia are nearly at Stiles’ house.

“You didn’t mention it to Scott yet, did you?” Stiles says.

Allison rolls her eyes. “Give me some credit, Stiles. I love him, but I don’t need him freaking out every time somebody says something in French.”

“Well, that’s what I’m saying,” Stiles tells her, rolling his eyes right back. “So look, guys, Dad’s going to be here in probably an hour and I already know he’s not going to spill. And it’s a holiday, so I’m not going to get hold of anybody in research because government employees are deathly serious about their paid leave. So we’re going to have to come at this from a different angle.”

* * *

Melissa and Chris are having beers on the back porch with Francis when they all get back from the preserve. Francis gets up to greet Gabriel and is immediately attacked by three werewolf babies, because ten minutes in an enclosed space the size of a minivan apparently triggers an unstoppable urge to climb things and yip excitedly. Stiles is marginally more sympathetic to Gabriel’s need to break up his drive in with a stop at the preserve.

“They’re so cute,” Melissa says, watching Francis try and fall _into_ the doorway. Then she takes a swig of her beer. “Though man, I do not miss the days when it was my shoes being chewed up.”

Scott droops into the nearest chair. “God, _Mom_.”

“Bro, seriously, I lost a sweet pair of Nikes to you,” Stiles says.

Now Scott is turning on military-grade puppy eyes. “Stiles, oh, my God.” He muffles his face with one arm, then peeks over it. “ _Your_ family tree ate my kite.”

Stiles sputters, because that is just low. Low. “It—they don’t eat kites, Scott! Just because we never found the rest of it—”

“Eat,” Melissa orders. 

She lifts the cover off a tray sitting by her, revealing a huge spread of pierogi, sausages, roasted vegetables and two different kinds of ham. And there are some carbs and stuff too, but it’s winter and Stiles can eat meat without puking up plant matter and he isn’t going to waste a second of it.

“Dad in yet?” he mumbles around ham and caramelized Brussel sprouts. “He said he was on his way.”

“He is?” Beer aside, Chris doesn’t look that relaxed. He’d almost started up when Allison had come into view, and even now, watching Scott help her hook the rabbits against the wall, he’s taking in all the sightlines and tipping his feet onto his toes like he might need to sprint out any second. “Then it’s…settled?”

Stiles chews on a potato and smoked fish pierogi to hide his grimace. “Babcia’s staying over at our house, apparently.”

“Do you think we should bring her some food?” Allison asks. She’s frowning hard at the rabbit belly she’s digging her knife into, head slightly tilted, tongue-tip poking out between her lips so Scott’s too busy watching her to give them away. “If your dad didn’t take her out for dinner, after all?”

“Oh, she’ll be fine,” Melissa mutters. She takes another swig of beer, looking a lot less amused and a lot more like a woman who’s vacuumed up vampire ash. Something about Chris catches her eye and she looks over at him, then reaches over and feels up his beer bottle. She frowns and gets him a fresh one from a nearby cooler. “Believe me, that woman can fend for herself.”

Derek has taken up a position leaning against the rail and facing her, with his hands shoved into his coat pockets. He’s actually not much better at lying than Scott (mostly because he’s lazy, because Peter lies like they give out Olympic medals for it and Derek likes to watch), but he at least can scowl to cover. “My sister studied her for a whole semester,” he says, like he finds it all incredibly boring. “Said it was for the tactics as much as the ecology.”

Melissa starts to say something, then shuts up her mouth and pulls her chin down to her chest, like she always does when she doesn’t want to be rude. She jiggles her beer in one hand. “She knows how to go for the jugular, I’ll give her that,” she finally mutters. Then she pulls herself up and picks out a sausage from the platter. “Scott, honey, aren’t you going to eat?”

“Huh? Oh! Yeah, thanks.” Scott drags his eyes away from Allison and sort of edges around Chris, who is now holding two beer bottles without particularly looking like he wants either. He takes the sausage and wolfs about half of it down, then stops. Then eats the rest, more slowly, with a lot more vocal appreciation. “This is great, what is it?”

Derek sniffs. “Pheasant and wild berries,” he says. “You know, if Laura finds out Wanda Brzezicki’s in town, she’s going to ask what’s up. I think her professor worked with her for a little bit.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Melissa says. Then she cocks her head. She looks at Derek, who sort of tightens up his blank face, and then at Stiles. Then she looks at Scott, who is being way, way too obvious about cramming his mouth with eggplant. Which he hates. “Sc…” she twists around “…Stiles. Stiles, is this—are you—”

The door opens and Peter backs out of it, holding another tray. Stiles springs up and grabs the door, and grabs Peter’s arm while he’s at it, so he has a body between himself and Melissa’s sharp eyes. “Hey, I know you’re…okay. You’re not Peter.”

He looks a _hell_ of a lot like Peter from behind. Same height and build (same ass, shut up, Stiles is very fond of that view and has no shame about it), same taste in clothes. And in the front, there’s a passing resemblance with the dark hair, light eyes, amused smile. “I’m Thomas,” the guy says. He looks Stiles up and down, and his smile gets way more appreciative, which is _also_ like Peter, and so is how he smirks when Stiles backs up. “You’re his alpha?”

“Yeah,” Derek says, right at Stiles’ elbow. Derek is suddenly arching his neck so the muscles are pumped out, and curling his lip over a little fang, and when Stiles stops, Derek keeps going till he’s standing slightly in front of Stiles, about as into Thomas’ space as the tray will let him. “Tom.”

“Derek,” Thomas says. He glances at Stiles again, then shrugs regretfully and sidles sideways so he can set the tray down on a bench without having to go past Derek. “And Stiles, right?”

Thomas is a couple years younger than Peter, was married once before to a were-coyote, with no kids, and is currently courting a werewolf from a pack a couple counties south of here, which is why he doesn’t live in the Hale house now. But he’s expected to return and Peter and Derek seemed okay with him before. Stiles wonders if maybe he should’ve asked for more info besides the family albums. Like a werewolf-bait test, or something like that, because hell if he’s ever had this problem with other packs.

“Yep,” Stiles says. “Stiles Stilinski, that’s me. Nice to meet you.”

He waits with his chin slightly raised. Once the tray’s safely on the bench, Thomas straightens up and leans forward, and instead of pressing cheeks like is the polite thing to do, he slides his cheek down to the side of Stiles’ jaw and sniffs. Then he stands back and looks like the thing to do when Derek Hale is snarling at you is to muse like he’s sampling wine. “I’ve never smelled a tree guardian before. That’s very interesting, I was expecting something more druidish.”

“Well,” Stiles says. And then grabs Thomas by the chin, just as the asshole’s going to skitter back inside. He pushes Thomas’ head up and back and Thomas inhales sharply, going stiff. “I try to shower often, you know. Got to keep up appearances.”

Then he lets go. Thomas blinks a couple times, then laughs. He looks a little unsteady. As he backs into the house, he gives Stiles a short nod and then raises his hand to his jaw, and he’s…stroking it?

Stiles grimaces. “Shit, was he flirting with me?”

“What did you think he was doing?” Derek snaps. He stalks down the porch, then comes back and glowers into the doorway. “That asshole, just because his girlfriend’s alpha doesn’t want another—”

“Hey, so where should I put the heads?” Allison asks brightly. When Derek looks over, she holds up a pair of rabbit heads by the ears with a slightly strained expression.

“Who brought the rabbits?” says a female voice. A woman about Laura’s age comes out onto the porch. She pauses upon seeing Allison, sniffs around till she finds Chris staring right back at her, and then turns to Stiles, for some reason. “Good. We were just starting the last pie.”

Stiles opens his mouth, scrambles around for what the hell could connect him with the pieces, and then Scott groans quietly and it clicks. “Oh. Oh, hey, wait a sec, I think you’re confused—”

“Aren’t you the new alpha?” the woman says, frowning. She takes a step towards Stiles. “Your packmate’s got good timing. I’m Olive.”

“Uh, Stiles, and I’m not Allison’s alpha.” Stiles crooks his head, but Olive just stares at him.

“Huh,” she says. “Here I was thinking you at least had people around to hunt for you.”

“Olive, what the hell,” Derek snaps, and down the porch Chris and Melissa are both slowly getting to their feet, while Scott’s looking nervous but he shakes squirrel fur off his claws and is readying for a leap.

“What, Derek, if nobody else is going to say it, I will,” Olive snaps back. “The guy’s bonded to a tree. He can’t eat meat, what the hell is he going to know about were—”

And then she deliberately jabs her shoulder into Stiles when she makes to go face up to Derek, and fuck it, good werewolf manners include standing up for yourself. So Stiles grabs her shoulder and shoves her back, and duh, he’s watching out for the snarl. And the claws. And the lame-ass attempt to slap him away.

Olive looks really surprised to be flat on her ass in the grass in front of the porch. Derek looks surprised too, and then he grins and he sidles up to Stiles like it was all his idea, all hooking his fingers in Stiles’ belt and rubbing his face over every inch of that side of Stiles’ throat, and purring like a maniac the whole time. Stiles is admittedly into it, even if it’s a little more psychopathic than he usually goes for, but audience including mother-figure, stage right. And dumbass werewolf, front and center.

“What the hell was that for?” Stiles says to Olive. “Big fucking deal, I can’t eat meat sometimes. I don’t remember that being a goddamn requirement for, you know, _reading books_ about werewolves and _talking to them_ and _going on hunts_ with them. So I don’t kill things by crushing their windpipe with my jaws. Believe me, I can work around that.”

“You flipped me,” Olive says, blinking. “You flipped me. I thought you needed the tree to do anything.”

“I—what? What stupid crap are you people reading?” Stiles says, throwing up his hands. “Have you not heard of combat training?”

“Excuse me.” Peter appears, and he’s got Thomas by the neck and Talia in tow. He drops Thomas so he can take in the scene. Grins briefly when he sees Stiles and Derek, and then goes right back to ragingly annoyed. “I’m sorry, I thought we had actual _brains_ in our family. Or did you forget whose alpha he is?”

Olive pulls herself onto her feet, dusting at the grass stuck to her ass. “Well, God, so sorry I was concerned you were hooking up with some tree-hugging dude, Peter. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t going over to the pacifists.”

Now that Stiles isn’t worrying about fighting, he can see that Olive has a ripped-up Che Guevara t-shirt on, and a wolf-claw tattoo on her arm. “The Nemeton _drinks blood_ ,” he says, throwing up his hands. “What about that screams pacifism?”

“It smells good, anyway,” Thomas says. He hunches his shoulders and drops his head when they all look at him, but otherwise looks unrepentant. “What? He does. Nice one, cousin.”

“Hey, man, I’m sorry,” Olive says, coming up to the porch rail. She’s got her head tilted so far over that her ear is practically pressed to her shoulder. “Yeah, I assumed things, and I shouldn’t have challenged.”

“Jesus Christ. Did I actually have a dominance fight. Was my first dominance fight about my _situational vegetarianism_ , for fuck’s sake.” Stiles puts his hand over his eyes, then takes it down to find that yeah, that just happened, and…everybody’s just standing around. Even Peter, even though he’s flexing his claws and clearly itching to intervene. But he’s waiting because Stiles is the offended party and as alpha he can delegate or whatever. 

Right. He knows this shit, at least. 

“Well, look, I’m eating now—” he holds out his hand and Scott, awesome friend that he is, slaps a sausage into it so Stiles can bite into it and make Olive twitch “—but you really want to know what it’s like to get your ass kicked by a tree, we can go out later. It’s kind of sleepy with winter coming and all, so you should only be in traction for a couple weeks.”

He can’t help glance at Talia after that, but she’s just leaning in the doorway, a neutral expression on her face. She does give him a tiny nod, so he guesses she’d be okay with some of her family spending Thanksgiving on a liquid diet.

“No, no, I’m sorry, honestly, I’m really sorry, alpha.” Olive pauses, and then tilts her head and sort of pushes her shoulders back. It’s like Laura’s cleavage-pumping move, except she’s still baring her throat, too. “Though you want to do a demo with Tom over there, I’m in.”

Derek snarls. Tom looks sort of cringe-y and sort of interested, and Peter just rolls his eyes and then casually tosses Thomas over the porch rail like Thomas is made of crumpled paper. Then he strolls over, swings his legs up and over the rail so he’s perched on it next to Stiles, and looks down at his wincing cousins.

“ _I’ve_ eaten,” he says to Stiles, with big, hopeful eyes.

“You’re such a psycho,” Stiles says affectionately. He glances at Talia—definitely in what-can-you-do-with-idiots mode—and then shrugs. “Well, they’re your cousins. But I don’t know if I want blood on my food. Tree’s full.”

“I…guess we could move the food inside?” Scott says. He’s never been big on dominance fights, even though he’s actually pretty great at them. Probably because he fights like he wants it over as soon as possible.

“Oh! Also, didn’t you need these?” Allison waves the skinned rabbits.

Talia finally cracks a smile, and it’s a big, broad one. “I’ll take those, dear,” she says. She pauses to examine them, and then gives Chris a nod. “Good teaching. I have family with their own kids who aren’t this neat.”

“Really?” Chris says. Apparently compliments are what will startle him out of his gloom.

“Suburbia,” Talia mutters darkly.

She disappears into the house, while Chris looks sympathetic for about two seconds, then looks like he doesn’t know how comfortable he is with that. Melissa stretches out her arm and lays it over Chris’; he looks at her, then smiles slightly and it’s really intimate and Stiles suddenly is uncomfortable. Not because he doesn’t like it, but just…he looks away, and then frowns at the empty yard.

“They always do that,” Peter says, tone withering. “And no doubt they’ll be sneaking up to you in the hall later.”

“Well, at least they like me. And it’s not like stalker wolves are anything new here,” Stiles says. He slides down the rail till he and Peter are bumping hips, and then tilts his head so Peter, who is back to grinning madly, can scent him. If he sneaks in a couple head-strokes while Melissa and Chris aren’t looking, well, he knows it’s hard for Peter to rein in those homicidal impulses and positive feedback and all that. “So my grandma’s staying at my house, apparently. Don’t know how long.”

Peter hums thoughtfully. “Do you need anything? We can dig up extra clothes for you and your father, but I think Gabriel was planning a drugstore run. His kids managed to chew through a couple toothpaste tubes.”

“Oh. Oh, well, I wasn’t thinking of that,” Stiles says. “I don’t think she’s going to be there that long, and anyway, even if she was, we’re not going to let her chase us out of our own house.”

“Well, it’s not a bad idea, Stiles. God knows I don’t want to go over when she’s there,” Melissa says. She has one of Chris’ beers and she lifts it, then lowers it with a shake of her head. “Okay, no, I will not be that one who gets drunk and embarrasses herself. Even if your grandma…Stiles, I know you’re frustrated with your dad right now, and I honestly wish I could help, but I don’t know that much more than you.”

Scott and Allison freeze like deer in headlights. Stiles just is in mute awe, and then he recovers and shakes his head. “No, no, you do. You put me to bed and then you went right back downstairs, and I could hear you yelling at her, too.”

Melissa starts to frown, and then he can see the recognition hit her. She blinks hard. “You remember that?”

“It was my mom’s _funeral_ ,” Stiles says. He can’t help but laugh a little. “Seriously? And then Babcia relocated to Poland for good. Yeah, yeah, I know she was already splitting her time for years and years, but you can’t tell me the timing wasn’t related. Look, whatever it was, you honestly think it’ll traumatize me to know at this point? How bad could it be?”

Melissa takes a deep, sharp breath. She looks at Stiles and he’s just thinking maybe, just maybe, he should not have gone there, when all the werewolves start up. Then the tree pokes Stiles to let him know his dad’s within sight range.

* * *

“God, these are so good,” Stiles’ dad mutters, chowing down on pierogi. “What, no, don’t touch that, those are—”

Stiles already has the files open. “Dad, honestly, how many times do I have to tell you, just let me do the reports? I don’t mind and I’m a lot faster than you, and…okay, that will totally get us a request for resubmission, and hey. Do not make me regret rewarding your bullshit with Talia’s cooking.”

They’re in the bedroom allotted to his dad, Melissa and Chris. Everyone else has supposedly scattered, but Stiles has a sneaking suspicion that they’re being spied on, soundproofing wards or not.

“So how long is Babcia staying?” Stiles asks. When his dad doesn’t immediately answer, he sighs and flops backward onto the bed. “Dad, come on. We just moved in a _month_ ago. I’m still surprised every day I get up and our actual furniture is there, you can’t take this joy from me already.”

“I’m not taking your joy, son,” his dad says dryly. He looks longingly at the couple pierogi left on his plate, then sighs and sets it aside. “She wants to come over tomorrow and see you. Just see you, nothing that long. And then she swears she’s going to get back on a plane and leave, and shut up about my leaving the Service.”

Stiles raises his head. “Really? She wants to see me after all? And she’s gonna leave you alone? You honestly buy that?”

His dad snorts. “Not a chance in hell. But I do think she’ll leave town, and that at least buys us some time.”

“True.” Stiles puts his head back down. “Though honestly, Dad? Not sure I want to see her. I mean, you raised me to be a good, well-mannered boy—” he flaps one hand at his dad’s disbelieving noise “—at least to try and mimic one, okay, and I’m not sure I can see her and not be a total shit since she spent years being nice to me and suddenly drops all that the moment I’m a legal adult and not a legit excuse to tie you down.”

“Stiles,” his dad sighs. “Look, I…appreciate your having my back. But it’s a little more complicated than that. And W—Babcia really does care about you, you know.”

“Well, she’s got a supremely fucked-up way of showing it.” Stiles sits up and looks his dad in the eye. “But if it gets her out of here faster, then I’d come out and dance in a tutu. I just don’t want you to take this all back when she’s gone, okay? Because _yeah_ , I _am_ her grandson, and it’s you and me she’s messing with. Okay, Dad?”

His dad looks down at him for a couple seconds. The man looks ragged, like something’s been chewing around his edges. He’s stressed out a lot, courtesy of overstuffed workloads and under-granted budgets, but he doesn’t usually look as beaten as he does now.

“Yeah.” His father reaches out and helps Stiles sit up, and then gives Stiles a one-armed hug around the head. “Yeah, okay, deal. She goes, and we’ll sit down and talk. She’s right about one thing, you _are_ an adult.”

“I still need a dad,” Stiles says. He kind of fumbles it, with his stupid hiccup, and then makes himself take a deep breath. Then he looks up at his father. “Hey…you don’t want to go, right? Because—I mean, it would really suck, but I am old enough to be on my own, and I don’t want—”

“Stiles,” his dad says, looking pained. He stops and puts his hand on Stiles’ shoulder, swallowing slowly. Then he shakes his head. “Stiles, no, I’m happy here. I’m not looking to leave.”

“ _Good_.” Stiles lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He’s a little dizzy for a second, and then he lifts his hand to the side of his face and rubs it hard, trying to clear that up. “Sorry. Just needed to check.”

“I know, Stiles. It’s all right.” His dad gives Stiles a rumple on the shoulder, then holds his hand down for a second. Then he turns back to the pierogi, absently pulling at his clothes. “I think I’m going to shower before I go down. There’s nothing I’m going to miss, is there?”

“Oh, just that Talia’s grilling Laura on this new boyfriend of hers, Scott is being abused as resident babysitter by all the Hales with small children, and I’m still figuring out which of them are jerks and which are just stupid,” Stiles says. “Oh, and Francis says he’s got a great whiskey for you.”

His dad snorts, snorts, rolls his eyes, and grins, respectively. “All right, well, can you let Talia know I want a word with her? I think we can talk your grandma out of coming all the way out here, but if she ends up being stubborn, Talia will want to be around for it.”

“Yeah, sure.” Stiles turns to go, then remembers something. “Hey, Dad? Chris is fine, right?”

“Chris?” His dad stops with a pierogi halfway to his mouth. “Did he say something?”

“No, you did. Licensing records, public scenting?” Stiles points to his neck. “Ring a bell?”

“Oh, right. That was a false alarm, just wasn’t sure if she was bringing any of her weres with her.” Then his dad grimaces. “I hope it was. You never know with—anyway. I think she was just looking him up because of his name. You know she’s got agreements with all the Old World families. But I made it clear to her that him and me have nothing to do with the French Argents, and she dropped it.”

Stiles almost tells his dad what Allison had said. Almost. But there’s a difference between them against the world, and screwing over a guy who, for all his issues, seems genuinely into his dad. And if Babcia is coming over tomorrow, then Chris has tonight to straighten it out and then Stiles can bring it up in the morning, if Chris decides to be an idiot. 

On the other hand, nobody ever said Stiles couldn’t throw in a poke with the clue-bat.

“Maybe you want to mention that to Chris and Melissa?” he says. “I mean, just a thought. Since otherwise it kind of looked like you were scenting so the other Hales would know he’s taken.”

“Oh, _shit_.” His dad stares at his plate. “Fuck. I didn’t even—fuck.”

“If it helps, I don’t think Talia took it that way, and Derek and Peter definitely don’t. But I had a little, um, disagreement with one of their cousins that I think went back to them smelling you on Chris,” Stiles says. “Not a big deal, that argument, by the way, it’s all cool now. No blood spilled, even. Just, yeah, maybe clear that up when you get the chance?”

And then he scoots out of the room…and right into Chris, who looks vaguely embarrassed about being caught loitering in the hall. At least the guy always manages to have talking props: this time it’s an armful of towels and one fistful of beer bottles. “Is he all right?” Chris says.

“Yep, all yours,” Stiles says, and pops into Peter’s room.

Surprisingly enough, only Peter and Melissa are there, and Melissa gets up and leaves as soon as Stiles comes in. “It’s Derek’s turn to deal with our guests,” Peter says. He and Melissa were looking at something on his iPad that looks suspiciously close to that baby were’s first kill youtube channel that’d gone viral a couple weeks ago, but he slaps the iPad face-down when Stiles goes for a closer look. “Stiles, you can do whatever you’re comfortable with, but it would be no trouble to host you and your father.”

“Oh. Oh, right. Um, thanks, but I think we worked things out,” Stiles says. That whole discussion seems like it happened ages ago, and okay, Stiles is wrung out, apparently. The moment he sits on Peter’s bed, he falls backwards and then he really doesn’t want to get up. “I gotta see her tomorrow, and then she’s gonna leave us alone. Probably just as well, I know you’re okay with helping us out, but it’d be really awkward to have Chris sneaking in and out for quickies, wouldn’t it?”

Peter pauses where he’s crawled over to Stiles. He purses his lips, and then angles himself so he can pillow Stiles’ head on his arm. “It’d be very entertaining,” he says mildly. He lets a little bit of grin show when Stiles elbows him, then drops down to breathe into the top of Stiles’ head. “Stiles, I think he’s smart enough to just use the front door. If he started sneaking in and out, that would probably raise some memories none of us are interested in reviving.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” Stiles rubs the side of his face. “That was kind of a shitty thing to say, wasn’t it?”

“You’re stressed,” Peter says. He plays a little with Stiles’ shirt where it’s sliding off his shoulder, then sighs. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” Then Stiles closes his eyes. “Okay, no, not really, and stop it with the _guilting_ eyes, oh, my God. Does that run in the family, too? If I steal all the desserts, is everyone going to turn on me and go all _alpha, alpha, please, we’ll be good now_?”

Peter snorts. “Only if they’d like me to throw them in the garden. I am sorry about earlier. I expected that from Tom, but I don’t know what Olive was thinking. If that was her problem, she should be objecting to me before you.”

“Well, Jane and her partner seem okay, and Gabriel’s nice? Even if his kids are going to nom Scott into little bitty wolfy pieces?” Stiles says. He rolls his eyes at Peter’s musing purr, then pulls together enough energy to twist over on top of the other man. He folds his arms over Peter’s chest and rests his chin on his hands. “I’m okay, in that I think we’re all going to get to Thanksgiving dinner in one piece and reasonably sane. I’m not okay in that this is just such a pain in the ass. I don’t want to see Babcia. I don’t give a shit anymore what her deal is, I just don’t want her around. We’re _finally_ settling in and things are good, and then she shows up and suddenly Dad’s scenting Chris in public and you guys are trying to make friends with Allison and I’m pumping Melissa for dirt on Dad in between alpha-ing every Hale in sight. And how fucked up is that?”

He smushes his face into his hands. Peter doesn’t respond right away, just lets him lie there. After a moment, Peter does move his arm to rest across Stiles’ back, but it’s like a blanket, warm and comforting. It’s not rucking up his shirt or rolling invitingly near his ass or anything like that. It’s just…nice. Peter’s nice, and that’s sort of weird in Stiles’ mind but it’s true, too. The sex is fan-fucking-mindblowing, but it’s little moments like this, when Peter just listens to him, or Derek does that meditation breathing trick that always works Stiles out of panic attack territory, that Stiles really gets how ridiculously lucky he was, ending up where he is. Homicidal stalker werewolves who get flirty over corpses, who would’ve thought?

“I don’t think it’s fucked up,” Peter says, tone measured but easy. “It could be worse. We could have gone to war with the Argents, and if we had, who knows if any of us would have been still alive now? And you might not have been able to bond with the Nemeton here, and you and your father would be sitting down to dinner by yourselves somewhere else.”

“That’s very…philosophical of you,” Stiles finally says. “And kind of depressing. _You’re_ okay, aren’t you?”

Peter smiles at him. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m fine. I just…” he touches Stiles’ jaw “…I was thinking. Remembering, really, watching you and Olive and Thomas. I left this all once and at the time I was thinking good riddance and…not that I still don’t think it about certain of them, but I can’t imagine leaving now.”

“Oh,” Stiles says. He ducks his head because he’s flushing, ugh, and then remembers something himself. “So, um, that was all good, wasn’t it? I didn’t think I needed to wait for Talia to okay me shoving them off—”

“Would you have, if that was the rule?” Peter says, raising his eyebrow.

“Um, no.” Stiles shrugs. “I mean, I probably would’ve gotten them to go out of sight first, and where I could use the trees, but…yeah, no. Assholes are assholes. Though, to be fair, it was a pretty lame dominance battle. Not that I really wanted it to get bloody, that’d be a really terrible Thanksgiving and I don’t care how much you and Derek dig it when I beat up somebody, it—”

“Stiles,” Peter says warmly, looking like it’s Christmas instead, and yeah, no way are they not kissing now.

It’s kind of a sucky angle so Stiles crawls up till he can put his arms down on either side of Peter’s head. His knees slide off and to either side of Peter, who runs his hands up Stiles’ thighs and it’s weird but something about that just gets to Stiles. He was just going to leave it at making out, because he is _not_ Scott and having sex in someone else’s house is just not a kink of his, but suddenly his jeans are way too tight and his hands are too knotted in Peter’s hair to take care of that.

Peter seems to be riding the same vibe, because he’s moaning and kneading at Stiles’ ass and more than once Stiles hears the rasp of a claw on denim. Stiles should be freaked out, but he’s grinding himself into Peter’s chest, sucking his way around Peter’s mouth. And then Peter lets out a really deep, really throaty groan, and Stiles is working up the control to pry one hand out of Peter’s hair to seriously do something about their clothes when Peter flips them over.

Stiles ends up half-sitting against the headboard. He grabbed at Peter’s shoulder and neck during the flip, and being caught by surprise means he’s digging in with his nails. Not that he’s really mad, but not that Peter’s really worried, even if he’s ducking his head and baring his nape like it.

Peter presses himself to Stiles, cheek flat to Stiles’ chest. He looks up with burning blue eyes, mouth half-open, panting so a little fold of Stiles’ shirt flickers in his breath. Then he slides down a few inches. He rolls his head so his mouth leaves a hot, moist imprint through the shirt on Stiles’ skin, and then works down a little further. His hands are back to rubbing at Stiles’ hips, starting on the outside edge and then working across the front. Stiles hisses because that is such a fucking tease, and then Peter grins and gets his pants down to his knees in this ridiculously slick motion.

He mouths over the head of Stiles’ cock before Stiles can yell at him, so instead Stiles is scratching at the backs of Peter’s shoulders and thumping his head against the wall. God, is this the side that his dad’s room is on? Those soundproofing runes—and then Stiles forgets about it because his cock is sliding all the way to the back of Peter’s throat, one smooth slow push, Peter’s eyes bright above his stretched-out mouth, and Jesus fucking Christ. Stiles goes back to pulling Peter’s hair.

Peter purrs like he’s being petted. It goes all the way through Stiles’ cock into his pelvis and he rocks frantically once, then catches himself. He claws at the back of Peter’s head till he finds his way to Peter’s nape, then wraps his hand around the back of it and makes that rock forward instead. Peter resists for all of one second before going loose, still purring, sucking like Stiles isn’t fucking his face, like he really just wants to lie there and take it, and suck down every last drop of come while he’s at it.

“Oh, wow,” Stiles says. He’s all sticky with sweat and his clothes are clinging under his armpits in a really uncomfortable way, and he still feels better than he has all day. “Oh, fuck. Peter, we seriously just had sex in your bedroom.”

“Yes,” Peter says, like he knows his curiosity is a bad idea but can’t help it. He’s pillowing his head on Stiles’ thigh, occasionally lifting it so Stiles’ fingers drift off his neck into his hair.

“Like, your bedroom since forever, in the house your parents used to own. Since you were old enough to have one, that’s what you said. We actually hit that cliché,” Stiles says.

Peter tilts his head so he can look at Stiles without dislodging Stiles’ hand. “Does this look like a children’s bedroom?”

“But it’s the principle, Peter, I still had that over Scott,” Stiles says, and then he laughs. 

He shimmies down the headboard so he can wrap his arm over Peter’s back and his leg happens to nudge Peter’s untended erection. So of course Peter shifts over so he can rub it against Stiles’ leg, and then looks annoyed when Stiles squeezes the back of his neck. He looks slightly less annoyed and more worried when he sees how Stiles is looking at him.

“Aren’t we supposed to be going down for cake and cookies? You want me to eat the cookies, remember?” Stiles says. He curls his fingers so he can scratch lightly at Peter’s hairline, then spreads them again so their tips are lined up along the corded muscle flexing in Peter’s throat. “And I’m supposed to be making nice with your family. Because this is the world where they’re just thoughtless jackasses, and you get really worked up over me kicking their ass, and eventually we’re all gonna sit down to a nice, roasted, mangled boar.”

Peter somehow manages to look desperate and turned-on and exasperated at the same time. And hot. The Hales clearly managed to breed the ugly out generations ago, every one of them would make Stiles look twice, but Peter with his eyes glazed over and his damp curls sticking to his temples, _that_ makes Stiles just stop in his tracks.

“Alpha,” he says, half-whining, half-encouraging. He twists a little under Stiles’ hand, but goes tamely enough when Stiles pushes him off. Peter flops beside him, squirming a little, and then freezes when Stiles opens the bedside drawer. “I hate you.”

“Hah,” Stiles says. Yep, definitely not a kid’s room. He pulls out a butt plug and some lube. “You know you love me.”

“Yes,” Peter says, just as Stiles turns back to him. He did that on purpose, but also, he means it. And then he leans over and kisses Stiles very softly, and lays his head on Stiles’ frozen shoulder. “It’s all right, Stiles. This isn’t something I want to rush.“

“Yeah.” Stiles absently pets his head, and then snorts and tugs Peter’s head up and to the side. He bites Peter’s neck, then sucks hard over it; the spot’s going to heal before they get out the door, but every werewolf nose is going to smell where it was. “Yeah, me too, to both.” He listens to Peter’s breath catch. “Though this plug’s still going in you, because I need an excuse to get out of there before somebody says one more stupid thing about the tree.”

Peter snorts, but he’s grinning like every one of his teeth needs the air when he gets up. “We could just stay here,” he says, bracing himself against the headboard. “Talia technically can’t _make_ me help her now, not if you—say—you need me.”

“Yeah, well, I wanna make sure my dad’s good for the night,” Stiles says. He gives the plug a tap, just because he likes how Peter’s back shudders, and then cozies up to suck another temporary hickey on Peter’s nape. “Get Derek to blow you in the pantry or something if you can’t wait.”

* * *

Sometimes Peter is very literal, and sometimes he is just flat-out abusing the whole alpha-ordered-me-to thing. One second Derek is glowering at Thomas over a slice of cake, and the next, he’s _oofing_ in the hall and then Laura is reaching out to manually turn away Thomas’ head, while Cora is stealing Derek’s cake and Scott (still a little shredded from the babies) is doing his level best to bury himself in his slice.

“Peter’s gotten a lot more spontaneous,” Thomas observes.

Laura nods, and casually reaches over again to give Thomas a hard pat on the jaw. “Yeah, I like it,” she says, picking up a bunny cookie with a target drawn on its flank in red icing. “Sorry, Stiles, I know it’s really more your call, but I think Thomas would enjoy you throwing him around too much.”

Thomas looks wounded. “Yelena and I are very happy to hear you’re finally finishing that thesis, Laura. We’re looking forward to spending more time with you.”

Laura bites the cookie in a way that makes Stiles glad it’s just a cookie. Also, he can see why she might be putting off the whole take over from Talia thing, if people like Thomas are what she’s inheriting. “Scott, you want to pass me the sheep cookies—Scott. Dude. Seriously,” Stiles sighs. “I thought we were past this.”

Scott is still staring at his mom, who appears to be having a great time in the next room, sipping whiskey with the other parents and trading stories about hunting mishaps. Which is why Allison is over there and not attached to Scott; she seems genuinely thrilled at the chance to pick up tips from people that don’t come with her dad’s baggage. Also, she’s a lot better at ignoring the stubble burn on Melissa’s neck and Chris’ way more relaxed body posture, and how Stiles’ dad can’t help but look a little pissy whenever a were sniffs in either of them’s direction.

Not exactly clearing things up, Stiles thinks, but nobody’s throwing down, so he guesses it’s all right.

“Stop looking,” he says to Scott. He polishes off one last cookie, and then gets up from the kitchen counter. “Well, I have a crappy meeting tomorrow morning, so I’m going to turn in early.”

Laura coughs into her mug, while Thomas has the sense to keep his mouth shut but looks smug in a very Hale way. Stiles gives Scott a last, probably useless, pat on the shoulder, and then catches Allison’s eye on the way out. He nods significantly to Scott and she nods back, and it’s all very domestic.

What’s not domestic is Derek on his knees, pinning Peter into the corner of what looks like an extra linen closet. He turns around while wiping off his mouth, and then licks at his hand while looking up at Stiles. “I thought you didn’t want to have sex in Mom’s house,” he says.

“Well, God, if you’re going to keep reminding me where we are,” Stiles mutters, and drags him out of there, Peter at their heels. Fuck it, he wants it, and somehow he’s got it, and he’s just going to stop thinking about what the hell other people think for a night.

* * *

Derek apparently had been storing up a lot of appreciation for Stiles beating on his cousins, because he manages to wear out even Peter. As for Stiles, _damn_ , everything hurts but it hurts in such a good way. He might not actually fall asleep till way late, but when he does, he’s out.

He still feels a little floaty when he wakes up, hunched over from something repeatedly jabbing his mind. The tree. Right. Stiles worms his way out from between Derek and Peter, fumbles on some clothes, and then is starting down the hall when a door opens.

“Hey, Stiles, what are you…do you know what time it is?” Scott yawns.

Stiles shakes his head. “Sorry, I wake you?”

“It’s what, seven? Why are we up?” Scott, being Scott, really just wants to know and isn’t upset at all about being forced out of bed. He follows Stiles down the stairs and out onto the front porch, and that’s when the fucking tree decides to stop murmuring and just fucking sounds the alarm.

Stiles grabs at his head, then jerks up and stares at the road. The empty road, thank fuck—he runs back inside, barely remembering to not bang the door shut till _after_ Scott comes in. “Dad! Dad! She’s coming!”

“What’s the matter?” Francis emerges from the kitchen, still in his pajamas but with a half-empty cup of coffee in his hand.

A couple seconds later, a wild-eyed Derek clatters down the stairs. Peter’s just a half-step behind, throwing on a shirt, and after that Stiles’ dad appears. “She said she’d wait till I called her,” he mutters, shoving past Derek and Peter. “Goddamn it.”

“Hey, there’s someone else in the car with her,” says Scott. He’s got the front door open again and is whiffing the air. Then he stiffens. He turns around and looks around.

The whole house is basically up at this point, down to Gabriel and Cora hastily snatching back werewolf toddlers. Talia sweeps out into the hall, but Scott is searching past her. He keeps looking around till he spots Allison, standing on the stairs at her dad’s elbow. He twitches, glances at Stiles, and then grimaces and straightens up. “Um, I hear French. I think. Does anybody…”

“They’re speaking about you,” Talia says, looking up at Chris.

He goes white. His hand jerks back to his hip and scuffs uselessly, because he’s just in sleeping pants and shit, is Olive seriously eyeing him up? Then he snarls under his breath. He looks at Allison, then twists around the werewolves on the stair and hurries down. “Stay with Melissa,” he says over his shoulder.

“Dad!” Allison says, half-worried, half-outraged. She starts after him, then thinks of something else and whirls around to run back up the stairs.

Scott goes after her, while Stiles is shoving Francis away from the door so he can try and beat Chris to his dad. “Dad! Hey, Dad, wait—”

His father is already across the yard and standing in front of a car that’s parked just at the treeline. He’s shouting. The tree is shouting and Stiles grabs at it, trying to lean on its strength, but it’s not shouting at him anymore, and it’s weirdly muffled, like he’s hearing it through water. Which freaks him the _hell_ out, because he waited so long for his baby and he nursed it out of hibernation and just, it’s his _tree_.

Stiles pulls together everything he’s got and punches at the tree, and—he gets through something. Like there was this skin around him, like a bubble, and once he’s through everything is in surround-sound volume 11, with Technicolor add-ons, and whoa. His head blows up and he stumbles, then catches himself against something. Someone. He’s got tree sap dripping from his nose and the tree is super-pissed at whoever managed to distract it from him.

“…tiles?” Derek’s wavy face bobs into view, so that’s Peter holding Stiles up. “Stiles?”

“Ugh, fuck— _fuck_.” Stiles tries to twist free, but Peter just hauls him up by the waist.

“They’re arguing,” Peter says, firmly but quickly. “Your father, your grandma, someone I presume is an Argent representative.”

Stiles jams his elbows back into whatever part of Peter he can reach. “Let go, fucking Babcia was yelling at my _tree_ —”

“Scott!” Chris snarls. “What the—”

Stiles turns automatically. Scott is sprawled over Chris, on the ground a couple yards to the side, and there’s this whistling blur going over them. It ends up being a crossbow bolt, which buries itself about a half-inch from where the Argent rep—who’s a man in one of those Mafia suits—has his hand on the car. The Argent rep jerks back, snaps something at Stiles’ grandma, who rolls her eyes and says something back. They’re both speaking what Stiles guesses is French.

“She’s saying she only promised he was safe from her,” Peter says, just as Stiles is regretting he opted for Spanish and Latin. He tilts his head as Chris gets up, spitting a French that doesn’t sound romantic at all, unless you’re into broken engines. “And now Chris is saying how dare they show up, if they’re going to…I admit that my gutter French does not go that far. That’s interest—anyway, something about they can’t cut them off on one hand and then ask for favors with the other.”

Stiles’ father demands to know what’s going on, so Babcia tells him. “Oh, that is such _bullshit_ ,” Stiles says. Then he realizes that one, Talia’s come out with Allison, who already has another bolt clipped in place, and two, everyone is staring at him. “It’s Polish, Babcia’s saying that—”

“I do not appreciate Johnny-come-latelies speaking with my family without permission,” his grandma says in crisp, slightly-accented English. She’s rail-thin so Stiles always thinks of her as kind of frail, but she’s almost as tall as Talia. Her hair is pulled severely back into a slim white tail, and the all-black outfit makes the hollow angles of her face look like a collection of knives. The Argent guy certainly looks like he thinks she’s going to cut him. “You have disavowed your family here, you have no local interest to justify this. You will leave now.”

“Besides, I don’t even want to go to your stupid summer camp!” Allison looks a little chagrined when everyone, even Babcia, turns towards her, but she jerks her chin up. She takes a couple steps till she can grab Chris’ hand, and when he starts, she smiles nervously up at him before glaring at the Argent guy. “I don’t. I don’t care how amazing it is, I’ve learned just fine with it, and we don’t need you. I didn’t see any of you trying to rein my grandfather in.”

“Allison,” Chris says. He raises his other hand in a kind of helpless gesture—except he got a gun at some point, from his car?—and he pauses when he sees the gun, then grunts as she suddenly hugs him. She says something into his chest that makes him look like he hurts, he’s so proud of her, and he slowly puts one hand on her shoulder. Then he frowns and looks over at the Argent guy. Says something in French that makes Peter look impressed and the Argent guy throw up his hands and stalk back to the car door.

The whole time that’s going on, Stiles’ dad just stands around looking—well, generally he’s still way pissed off, but he seems amused about this part, which answers the question of whether he knew this was all going on. Then the French guy yells something, and his dad straightens up like he’s going to go over and punch him in the face.

Babcia beats him to it, verbally. “He’s a good son-in-law,” she says. “My daughter may be dead but why would I give him up?”

Cue huffy French guy slamming the car door over Stiles’ dad shouting at his grandma again. “He’s saying he’s not my Babcia’s lackey, and she needs to stop bugging him, and yeah, he totally saw what she did there with letting the Argents get this close,” Stiles paraphrases. Then he notices Peter frowning at the French guy. “Oh, right, Derek didn’t mention? They were trying to get Allison to come back to the dark side, because she and Chris are cool again, now that they’re one degree away from the Nemeton.”

“It was her problem,” Derek says, looking defensive, because Peter is now frowning at him. “They were working it out, it wasn’t our business yet. Anyway, Stiles had an eye on it.”

“Still,” Peter starts.

“No, I did,” Stiles mutters. “Though yeah, sorry, should’ve mentioned it to you. It only came up earlier today and I got, um, distracted.”

Peter nods, relaxing, and then starts to say something, but right then Babcia tells Stiles’ dad that he needs to stop wasting himself, and Stiles’ dad says—Stiles doesn’t think he’s heard right and stupidly hikes himself up on the arms Peter’s got around him, like that extra three inches of forward lean is going to improve his hearing. “Wait, wait, you—”

“You would have been fine,” Babcia says, suddenly wheeling about. “You were old enough. Your needs would have been taken care of.”

“My mom had just _died_ ,” Stiles says. His jaw is hanging open. He shakes his head, then shakes it again. Then stares at this lady who he actually had thought was _nice_. “I was a kid! How was Dad supposed to leave me and—”

“When you are old enough for a tree, you are old enough to manage your land. We would have sent you a team to help, so your father did not need to stay,” Babcia says. “I said this before. You were already grown.”

“He was _not_ , and if you think for a second I was going to let one of your teams raise him—” Stiles’ dad goes off on a long, vicious string of Polish that doesn’t even make Babcia blink. “I don’t give a damn what you did in the old country, we aren’t there.”

Babcia’s brows pinch slightly. “John, our woods have survived for thousands of years—no, they have not survived, they have _thrived_ , and it is because of how we treat them. We have the pillar of the Nemeton, the claws of the wolf, the steady eye of the hunter. Our guardians are cherished and protected. My daughter was not.”

“Oh…shit,” Scott mutters.

Stiles’ dad rocks like he was slapped, and Stiles is just. Not. It wasn’t his father’s fault that hunter slipped through. He knows how long his dad thought that, and knows his dad still sometimes thinks that, and he’s just.

His grandma looks impassively up at the canopy of lashing branches above her, and then down at the roots slithering around her feet. That weird feeling of a skin between her and Stiles is back, but the tree is totally focused on Stiles now and he knows it’s not going to let her catch it off-guard again.

“Stiles,” his dad snaps over the cracking wood. “Stand down.”

“Like hell,” Stiles snaps back, and then turns to his grandma. “Oh, my God, you can’t just—you weren’t there either. You weren’t because my mom had issues with you and didn’t want you that close, not when the tree took her over you, and I didn’t get why before but now I get it’s because you are a complete _bitch_.”

“You would have had more protection if your father had left,” his grandma says. She is so fucking calm that Stiles really, actually hates her for a second. “And so would have your mother. There are roles for each of us, and your father’s best role is not sitting with the tree. If he had taken his proper role, your mother would not have been away from her tree. You saw just now, the other families, they see it too, and they are already circling.”

“He didn’t because that’s not how we do it here!” Stiles waves his hand and a tree crashes to the ground. He can see Allison jump from the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t have the…the _bandwidth_ to feel bad about it. “Your fucking Polish forests are one thing, this is something else! It’s not like my tree _wants_ to be like that, and I should know. And what the hell do you know about my dad, anyway? What do you know what he’s best at?”

“You can’t just impose your rules here,” his dad says. He exhales roughly, rubbing at the side of his face. Then he looks up at Stiles’ grandma and he’s dead tired, an _old_ dead tired, coming up from years and years ago. “It’s not the same, Wanda, and Stiles is not— _Claudia_ was not…”

He breaks into Polish. Tells Stiles’ grandma that anyway, it is not her tree, it doesn’t even have a connection to her tree, and since it’s Stiles’ tree he is staying right here. He’s sorry if she needs help somewhere else. If she thinks he’d be a better fit with another group. It might be true but he’s just going to keep doing the best he can here.

Somehow Stiles’ dad is all calm and steady about it. He’s had a lot of practice, Stiles guesses, and what Stiles thinks is a laugh bubbles up, but it comes out a strangled noise of frustration. “Oh, my God,” Stiles says weakly. “How the hell. I can’t.”

“Stiles?” Scott and Peter both say. Peter tightens his arms around Stiles, while Derek has curled his hand over Stiles’ shoulder and is squeezing it rhythmically.

“You are not going to have a forest like we had before,” Babcia finally says. She is still ice-cold but her stance has shifted a little. She knows this conversation is over.

“That’s the whole point,” Stiles tries, like she’s even going to listen. “Goddamn it, don’t you give a shit about us? Did you ever give a shit about Mom, or was she just another piece you couldn’t jam into place?”

Stiles’ dad inhales sharply. He’s being so goddamn _nice_ to her. He’s totally not the saintly type, and yet, somehow, he hasn’t gone at her.

“She was my daughter.” Babcia abruptly turns to Stiles so they’re facing each other head-on, and suddenly her eyes are blazing, her voice is cracking like a whip. The tree goes still in the back of Stiles’ head and he can’t really blame it; he’s mad as hell at her and he still feels like he’s facing up to an inferno. “And you are my grandchild, my _only_ with this gift, and you will not have everything that you could have. Can you see how this upsets me?”

“Can you see how I don’t actually want it?” Stiles says. His voice cracks. Fucking embarrassing—every time he thinks puberty’s given up, it manages to undermine any sense of growth and improvement he’s got. “I don’t want to rule the woods, Babcia. I just want my dad. You can’t—you can’t take him away from me.”

“Jesus,” Stiles’ dad mutters. He shoots a look at Babcia, then backs up towards Stiles. “I’m not leaving. Don’t worry, I’m not.”

Peter, with his usual sense of timing, loosens his grip just in time for Stiles to stumble forward a pace, then grab his dad’s shoulder. His father half-turns towards him, but doesn’t hug him; he gets it and keeps watching his grandma. The trees stop moving—everything stops moving, really. It all goes quiet. Even the Argent guy in the car seems to be holding his breath.

“I understand,” his grandma says slowly. “I do not agree.”

“Fine,” Stiles’ dad says over Stiles’ sputtering. “But let him finish growing up before you go at him again, would you? I want him to learn about his mother’s family, I never argued with you on that.”

“Well, I don’t,” Stiles snaps.

His dad looks at him. “I want you to have a choice, and time to think about it,” he says slowly. “There’s not a lot left from her for you—I don’t want you to not know where she came from.”

Stiles opens his mouth, then looks away. He reaches out for the tree—he’s not quite sure why. It’s not like it can help him with this. There’s a reason why they’re guardians and not partners; it’s symbiotic but it’s not equal and anyway, he’s pretty used to standing up on his own. But he reaches for it, and it doesn’t understand anything except that he’s upset and it pushes the warm feeling it gets when the sun shines on it at him, and weirdly, that helps.

“I get that. I do, really.” Then Stiles looks at his grandma. “But not like this. If you want to come back, and you want to come like…like someone who wants to hear us out, who actually cares what I want and not what you think I want, then maybe we can try it. But I don’t want you when you’re coming like this. You’re not my Babcia right now, so you can go, and then you can stay the fuck away.”

His grandma is still and unblinking for a moment. His dad raises his hand and then lowers it, and then finally just gives him a squeeze around the shoulders.

“I see,” she says. She nods sharply at Stiles. “Then I will finish business here. And I will not have the other families speaking to you. This is not one of our trees, you are right. You are my grandson but your tree stands outside of our agreements.”

“Thank you, Wanda,” Stiles’ dad says. He’s all dry about it and totally feeling the hypocrisy in the air, but he means it. “I’m going to assume you’ll use common sense and not get in the way of things like extradition treaties and things like that.”

His grandma smiles at him, and for a second she actually genuinely seems to like his dad. Stiles wonders if he should check for possession. He does back the hell up and grab his dad’s arm again.

“Thank you,” Chris says, more than a little like he’s getting it out at knife-point. He glances at the guy in the car, then curls his arm more tightly around Allison. “I am sorry for the trouble they’re going to give you, but my daughter and I appreciate it.”

“Oh, trouble,” his grandma says dismissively. “My people were running hunts when yours were still tavernkeepers who shot at dogs in their cups. Mireille will apologize and that will be the end of it.”

Chris looks like he doesn’t know whether to just take the out or whether he’s being too much of a doormat if he doesn’t object. When Talia clears her throat, Chris briefly looks grateful for the interruption, and then goes back to looking like he wishes he knew how he has this many emotions.

“Now, I think you are done, Madam Brzezicki,” Talia says. Her hands are loose at her sides but her chin is up, pointedly using the slight height advantage.

Stiles’ grandma stares flatly at her. Talia smiles pleasantly. Derek and Peter are still hanging around Stiles instead of flanking out from her, but that makes sense once Stiles glances back at the house and sees glowing eyes on the porch, from the garden, in the bushes on either side. Francis is squatting on the porch rail and Laura is filling up the front doorway.

“Alpha Hale,” Stiles’ grandma says. She doesn’t lift or lower her head as she turns smoothly on her heel and walks back to the car.

The Argent guy starts up the engine and backs down the drive. They’re out of sight within seconds, but Stiles waits till the tree tells him they’re on the main road out of the preserve before he relaxes. And then he’s got to bend over and grab his knees, because suddenly he feels like he’s made of wet noodles.

He hears a loud _whoosh_ and looks up, because he thinks it’s the tree branches and he’s embarrassed to lose control like that, only it’s actually Allison blowing out her breath. She plops her ass on the ground, her arms wrapped around her, and then shakes her head at Scott and Chris, who’ve both zeroed on her.

“Wow,” she says, looking dazed. “That…sucked.”

“But we survived,” Stiles says. He holds out his fist, then shakes it a little to catch her eye. She blinks at him, then shrugs and leans over to bump her fist into it. He grins, but then he thinks of something. “Oh, my God. Dad. Oh, my God. We need to check where Scott’s dad is, because I cannot deal with another family drama bomb. I’m just going to spear him.”

“He’s on the East Coast,” Scott says. He’s too nice to roll his eyes, but he does look annoyed as he sits down by Allison. “Believe me, Mom and me double-check before every holiday.”

“You aren’t expecting anyone else, are you?” Stiles’ dad says. To Talia. He must be tired, to be joking like that; his face says he regrets it immediately.

For once Talia takes the high ground and just shakes her head. “No, and I think after breakfast I’m going to walk the perimeter, just in case. If I feel like a rogue omega would be too much, I can’t imagine what you feel like. Oh, Chris, John—if you want to report the Argents, you can, but there’s no need to do it on our behalf. We’ll consider it a non-hunting visit.”

“Oh.” Chris clearly had forgotten all about territorial restrictions on hunters. He glances at Allison, then shuts his eyes and rubs at his temple like he’s getting a migraine. “Oh, thank you. That’s…great, thank you.”

“That gets rid of half the paperwork,” Stiles’ dad mutters. He steps over to Chris but puts his hand on Stiles’ shoulder at the same time. “Chris? Are you two all right?”

“I’m good,” Allison says immediately. She leans back against Scott and looks up at her dad, who opens his eyes, frowns at them and then sighs.

“I’m sorry,” Chris says quietly. He looks at Stiles’ dad. “That was—I should have cut it off sooner.”

Stiles’ dad rolls his eyes. He lifts his hand and then seems to remember everybody standing around, and does not do whatever he’d been about to do at around neck height on Chris. “She was looking for an excuse to show me up,” he says. “And your family seems pushy.”

Chris grimaces. He looks away, then back at Stiles’ dad, and then he just kind of loosens up all around the edges, like he had a ton of strings holding him back and somebody’s cut them all. He takes a step towards Stiles’ dad, then snorts. “Lot of that going around,” he says dryly.

Then he steps right up against Stiles’ dad, like Stiles isn’t standing _right there_ , with a ringside view of Chris tucking his head into the crook of Stiles’ dad’s neck. Chris presses in and holds it for a second, then moves back. Stiles’ dad almost grabs Chris by the neck and just catches himself, looking at Stiles.

“I’ll grab you a couple sausages from breakfast,” Chris says, walking towards the house. His eyes flick around to everyone watching, but for the first time since he got here, he’s carrying himself like he’s just annoyed and not also embarrassed.

Stiles absently lifts his arm for an incoming werewolf, then loops it over Derek’s back as he stares after Chris. “Co-evolution,” he says slowly. “And I got _reprimanded_ for that memo.”

“Because you were supposed to explain the wood chipper,” his dad says. He politely averts his eyes from Peter rubbing up against Stiles, then puts his hands on his hips and looks off into the distance.

Talia’s long since drifted away; Scott gets the hint and pulls Allison to her feet. Derek looks like he wants a verbal command or something, but Peter drags him to the porch. It’s not like they can’t hear from there, anyway.

Stiles’ dad turns and looks at them like he’s thinking exactly that. He considers the woods, then sighs and drops his eyes. “That’s not how I wanted to tell you about what happened. And…I was going to, eventually. I just didn’t want you to spend your whole childhood hating them.”

“So now I’m going to spend my whole adulthood thinking they’re entitled assholes,” Stiles says. He shrugs, then bumps his shoulder into his dad’s arm. “I get it, really, I’m not going to pitch a fit at you just because you were trying to let me have my cake and eat it. I just—she must have put you through so much bullshit, Dad, and I wish you hadn’t had to go through that. You don’t _have_ to. I wanna help, and I wanna help keep that shit away from both of us, not just me.”

“I know, Stiles. I know.” His father smiles ruefully at him. “Okay, I’ll try and be better. Your Polish is getting rusty, anyway.”

Stiles tells him in all the ways that he disagrees.

Rolling his eyes, his dad corrects some of Stiles’ phrasing. “Besides, it wasn’t all bad,” he adds. “You like some of your cousins, and I got some good skills out of that year I spent on their estate.”

“You said that year was like being on an endless snipe hunt,” Stiles says.

“It was, but I got lessons out of it I still use. Look, what I’m saying is, I chose to try and stay in touch, and give you a chance to see whether you agreed with her or not. Yeah, she didn’t make it much fun, but I thought it was worth it, and I still think it was worth it.” His dad gives him a quick hug, then ruffles his hair. “So don’t get guilty over that, kid. There’s plenty else you can feel bad about dropping on me.”

“Okay.” Honestly, Stiles is going to have to sit with that one, but he’ll try. It does mean something to his dad, after all, so it’s the least he can do. “Okay. But from now on, we share the crappy relatives.”

“Sure,” his dad says. “Right up till you duck out of the Christmas card list.”

Stiles is still sputtering denials as they hit the front porch. It’s not as full as he’s expecting: Laura has ducked back inside long enough to grab a blanket and is now snoozing on one of the benches, but Francis has disappeared. He can hear Talia talking to somebody just inside, asking them to please keep the kids away from the brandied cherries. Derek and Peter are still out and they’re sitting with Melissa, who has a shotgun at her feet and is carefully dosing a tray of coffee mugs with slugs from one of two decanters.

“Whiskey, purple top and purple mugs are the wolfsbane ones,” she says, setting them down. She grabs a mug for herself and then hands one to John, and another one to Stiles. “Just don’t overdo it, okay?”

“I never,” Stiles says.

Melissa drinks some coffee, then raises her brows at him. “And what was Fresno?”

“A horrible mix-up with the sugar jar and fairy dust,” Stiles says, clutching his mug.

Derek has also stolen a blanket, and offers Stiles a corner. He grunts when Stiles just snuggles into his chest and thereby co-opts a full half of the blanket, but settles down soon enough. And turns down the mug Peter offers him. “Can we go back to sleep now?” he says, in all seriousness. “Don’t look like that, we still have the actual dinner to get through.”

“Oh…crap, it _is_ Thursday morning, isn’t it?” Stiles says.

“We can hide,” Peter says. He looks completely blasé about the disbelieving looks Stiles, Stiles’ dad, and Chris, who has just emerged from the house with a big tray of breakfast goodies, are giving him. “You still have tree sap on your face, Stiles. Upset stomach?”

Stiles blinks, then curses and scrubs at his chin.

“Really, Peter?” Melissa says. “Has that ever worked for you?”

“I’m not saying me, I’m saying Stiles,” Peter says patiently. “He’s my alpha, you’re a nurse, everyone else can go on supply runs.”

“Huh. Good point,” Melissa says. She scoots aside to make room for Chris between her and Stiles’ dad, then picks up a mini breakfast sausage from the tray Chris is setting down. “Well, as long as nobody here is a doctor.”

“But it’s a tree problem, so they wouldn’t know,” Stiles’ dad says. Then he frowns. “Why am I encouraging this?”

Melissa hands him a sausage. He examines it, then pops it into his mouth and clearly forgets he’s in the middle of a moral crisis.

“Damn, this is good,” he mutters. “Wait, if we get out of dinner, we’ll miss the rest of the food.”

“So you time it for the second-to-last course, and stop in the kitchen to swipe dessert before you go up. The sink’s right there so you can pretend to be sick in it,” Chris says. He’s a little quieter than the others, but he grins into his waffles when Melissa wraps an arm over his back, absolutely delighted at his contribution. “Which _has_ worked for me, multiple times.”

“Holiday dinner?” Peter says, just sounding curious. And when Stiles looks up, he does seem to only be asking, and not needling.

Chris makes a face. “Firearms conventions.”

“That’s pretty close,” Stiles’ dad says, also making a face.

“Wake me up when they’ve got all the details worked out,” Stiles mutters to Derek. He burrows down into the blanket, giving Derek a nuzzle when Derek sighs and says okay. Honestly, there’s probably something wrong when the parents are the ones going along with Peter’s ideas, but Stiles is worn out. They can watch themselves for a little bit, he thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> ‘Babcia’ is how you address your grandmother in Polish. 
> 
> Stiles’ grandmother is named after the mythological Princess Wanda, while her last name, Brzezicki, means ‘by the birch trees.’ Her philosophy is not really modeled after any real-life group in particular, although I generally wanted to get across that she's a traditionalist carrying on a way of life that is much truer to old pagan ways than certain New Age movements seem to think. Stuff got bloody back then, and social structures that give females relatively elevated stature are still not the same as giving them true social mobility.
> 
> I have this nagging feeling that I ran across the prey animal cookies with inappropriate decorations in some other TW fic, but I can't remember which story. Anyway, if it was your story, hope you don't mind the borrowing. Also happy to add a credit if you like.
> 
> Scott and Allison being allowed to stay together: The younger generation are all eighteen, but remember that in this 'verse, they've been dating for something like three years and show no signs of breaking up. I knew plenty of older teens in long-term relationships who went on family vacations with their SO's family, which boggles my mind more.
> 
> The little werewolf kiddies think Stiles is supposed to be like [the Green Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Man).
> 
> Olive: Even werewolves have to have their poseur college rebels, right?
> 
> French dialects can get pretty growly. Just listen to anyone from Brittany, or watch one of Luc Besson's Marseilles-set films (the _Taxi_ series is near and dear to my heart). And Gévaudan, where canonically the Argents are from, is southern France, definitely not going to sound Parisian around there.
> 
> Update: Missing scenes (focusing on the parents) available [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4709111/chapters/12216770), [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4709111/chapters/12216899) and [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4709111/chapters/12216935).


End file.
